Primal Instincts
by Sevlow
Summary: The combined stresses of work and family drive Hughes to distraction, but Mustang is starting to think that something else--something far more dangerous--is the real reason for his sudden change in demeanor.
1. Scotch and First Aid Kits

((A/N: The usual warnings for this one: gore, violence, etc. Probably some angst... and some paranormalness. Enjoy.))

* * *

Damn, it was cold.

The frost on the ground was mucky, coating the street in a layer of wet, icy mud. The winter snows were almost completely melted now that March had finally rolled around and the resulting slush was very unpleasant indeed. It was a brown-gray-black sludge, clotted with dirt and ice crystals that stuck to the cars on the street and to the bottoms of Maes' shoes like a thin layer of frozen shit.

Now Major Maes Hughes _loved_ winter and he loved spring even more... but that transitional period between the two seasons was always both depressing and uncomfortable. The world was frigid and ugly right now, a barren wasteland of sleet and frozen gunk, cast in a dead grey hue as the sun hid itself behind the horizon like a sulky child.

Maes sighed to himself and lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose as he walked down the street. He was just tired and in a bad mood. He hadn't had much sleep lately and it was starting to wear on him.

The baby was sick. She was almost completely better now, but little Elysia had given mommy and daddy quite a scare last week...

Well, mostly daddy was the only one who was scared; Gracia had just calmly called the doctor—who declared the illness to be a bad cold and prescribed her a series of medicinal syrups to make her feel better—while Maes flailed around in a panic every time a cough wracked her tiny little chest. She was barely two months old—he rationed when Gracia informed him that he was over-reacting—a common cold could very well be a life-threatening thing to such a fragile little flower!

But, of course, mommy had been right; Elysia was on her way to a full recovery. This was a relief, not only because Elysia was getting healthier by the day, but because now that she felt better she was sleeping better through the night. Staying up with the baby each night trying to comfort her had taken a toll on Gracia's own health and she'd caught her daughter's cold. Between worrying about the two of them and listening to their intermittent coughing from night till morning, Maes hadn't had a good night's sleep in what seemed like ages.

Long story short, all three members of the Hughes family were a complete wreck at the moment.

He yawned hugely, his jaw popping a little as it stretched open wide. At least it would be Saturday in a few days and he would—hopefully—be able to sleep in a little during the weekend. He felt like he could sleep for years if left to his own devices, but he knew that he should probably get up fairly early Saturday morning and take care of Elysia so that Gracia could get some more rest and get over her cold.

Maes shivered, wondering—not for the first time this evening—_why_ he had decided to walk home instead of allowing Second Lieutenant Havoc to drop him off after he took Lieutenant Colonel Mustang home. Well, no... that wasn't completely true... He knew exactly why he wanted to walk, though the father and husband in him didn't want to admit it:

Maes really just needed a few minutes alone.

Between the office and his house, he felt like he was running all over the place. He was fighting to get promoted at work and Roy was pushing him harder than ever before to make it happen... and then at home with the new baby... and now both Gracia and the baby were _sick_...

It was just a lot to take at once.

Not that he regretted having a child or helping Roy get to the top. No... no way. Maes was thrilled daily by the joy of being a parent and Roy was his best friend—Maes would do anything for him, and he knew that Roy felt just the same. He didn't regret anything at all... but, damn, he just needed a few minutes to himself, to clear his head and settle his nerves a little with the crisp March air on his walk home.

He took a deep breath of the cold evening into his lungs, feeling it cool his throat and spread through his chest. He let the breath out again in a tired sigh and it puffed from his lips in a white, frosty cloud.

The air wasn't really helping that much, he admitted to himself silently.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and shivered miserably, just wanting to be home. He'd be there in about five minutes at his current pace, but that still seemed like forever.

A sudden loud bang echoed across the near-empty street and Maes jerked his head up. A group of empty metal trashcans overturned and rolled off the sidewalk as a huge black dog came barreling through them. The thing was massive; its legs were long and muscular, supporting a huge torso and a thick, fur-matted neck. Its eyes flashed green and red in the streetlights as it galloped from a side street and onto the main road where Maes was walking. In mere seconds it was close enough for him to see its exposed teeth dripping with slick, iridescent-looking saliva, and to hear its rumbling breaths as it ran.

There was something wrong with it... It didn't look right. It was too massive, its shoulders too broad and its paws too splayed to be any species of dog that Maes had ever seen before. It was wolfish, but warped—almost ape-like, somehow—and its eyes held a purposeful malice that Maes had only witnessed staring out of a human face.

Distracted by the beast's frightening wrongness, Maes realized a second too late that it was coming right for him. He staggered backward as the shaggy black body hurtled his way, its huge paws striking the pavement and kicking up a dirty spray of slush. He tried to side-step the attack, but his foot slipped on a patch of ice. He fell backward against a light pole, only barely managing to keep upright against the cold metal as the dog loosed a loud, grating bark. It threw itself forward and sank its dripping teeth into his thigh.

Maes shouted a strangled curse and struck it hard in the face with his balled fist until it let go. The dog hit the sidewalk again and crouched, growling low and revealing its teeth again in a blood-daubed snarl of warning.

An earsplitting crash made the dog jump and turn to look back, hackles raised.

"Hey! Get out of here!" someone shouted. Maes looked up and saw an older gentleman standing near the overturned rubbish bins, two trashcan lids clutched in his withered hands. He banged the lids together again and the gigantic dog lowered its head with a menacing growl, ears laid back flat against its narrow skull. It gave Maes one final, threatening look, licked the blood from its shining canines, and then loped off into the night, quickly disappearing down another alleyway.

"Y'all right there, son?"

Maes straightened himself and tried to smile at the old man as he approached, but the minute he put weight on his injured leg he had to clench his jaw in a tight grimace. "Fine. Yes, fine," he managed.

"Boy, I tell you, I've seen bears smaller'n that thing." He walked up to the major and put down the tin lids. He looked the taller man up and down, puffing a powder-white lock of hair from his brow. "He getcha?"

Maes looked down at himself. Even in the growing dimness of the evening he could see blood beginning to darken the pant leg of his uniform. He grimaced again.

"Just a little. I must have scared it into attacking."

"Uh-huh. _You_ scared _it_.

Maes had to smile at the gently teasing tone of the man's voice. "Yeah, yeah... But thanks for your impeccable use of trashcan lids, my friend. That could have gotten nasty."

"Bah..." he said, waving off his thanks with one calloused hand, "Nothin' a military man like yerself couldn't've handled on his own."

The major laughed and the two men bid each other a fond farewell. The old man went back into the building on the street corner and Maes continued on his way home, limping heavily.

After he'd made it only two blocks though, the stinging pain in his leg had become a sharp, hammering throb and he had to stop and lean against a street-sign, gritting his teeth. He still had six blocks before he got home and it was becoming increasingly apparent that he wasn't going to be able to make it there under his own power. He was cold, tired, frustrated, and his punctured thigh muscles burned with hot points of pain with every step.

He sighed and rubbed his face, his frustration bubbling ever higher. Great. This was the _last_ thing he needed right now, on top of everything else. Fucking dog. People needed to take more responsibility for their goddamn pets. Irresponsible pet owners who let their dogs run the streets needed to be taken out and shot. Seriously.

But then he took another breath, counted to ten, and let it out slowly. As aggravated as he was, standing here and thinking dark thoughts wasn't going to get him home any faster.

He weighed his options for a moment, turning his head to look down another street. And then, with a muffled groan of discomfort as he put his injured leg to work again, he lurched off of the road home and onto the path of a much closer destination.

* * *

Roy stood in his doorway bemusedly, having just opened it to reveal his best friend, Maes Hughes, leaning heavily against the jamb.

"Hey, Roy," Maes greeted affably. "Can I use your phone? And your first-aid kit?"

"...Do I _want_ to know?" Roy wondered aloud, taking a sip from the clinking scotch glass in his hand as he stepped back and allowed Maes to enter. Maes limped heavily into the room. His left pant leg was torn and the fabric looked wet.

"Slight mishap."

He staggered over to the couch and dropped onto it heavily, stretching his leg out with a wince. He took off his gloves and shrugged out of his heavy coat. Without a trace of embarrassment, he unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down off of his hips and to his knees, revealing a series of deep punctures on his thigh.

Roy blinked in surprise and put down his scotch on the coffee table. "Damn, what the hell did you _do_?" he asked, kneeling down beside him to look at the wound.

"Some dog attacked me. Big bastard, too." Maes made a face as he pulled up the blood-stained leg of his boxers, taking in the damage. "Hm. Not as bad as I'd thought, though. I don't think I'll need stitches."

Roy grunted in agreement. He was right; it could pass without stitches, but it was still a pretty nasty bite and it looked dirty. He didn't want Maes leaving here without cleaning and bandaging it at the very least.

He stood and retrieved his modest first-aid kit from under his bathroom sink before returning and handing it to Maes.

"Don't get blood on my couch," Roy warned him, pouring a second glass of scotch. He put the glass on the end table next to Maes before taking up his own scotch again and sipping at it, perching himself on the corner of the coffee table.

"I'll try," Maes said back with a heavy, exhausted-sounding sigh as he opened the little metal kit and soaked a wad of gauze with the tiny bottle of disinfectant therein. He dabbed the antiseptic-soaked gauze at the wound and hissed. He looked hopefully over at the scotch, then picked it up and downed half of it before grudgingly soaking the gauze again and touching it to a bloody puncture just above his knee. He winced again, but hopefully the alcohol would help take the edge off once it started to kick in.

Roy watched him clean the bite for a few moments silently, just looking at him. The man looked beat. He looked tired and irritated and was no doubt in some considerable pain.

That was probably just going to make this news that much more difficult to bear... Roy was originally going to wait until tomorrow to spring the news on him but, really—injury and all—now was as good a time as any.

"You didn't get the promotion, Maes," he said heavily.

Maes looked up from his administrations blankly. "What promotion?"

Roy blinked. "To the head of Treasury. The promotion we've been working to get you for _weeks_."

"Oh, right. Yeah. Who got it, then?"

"Higgins."

"Higs got it, huh? Good for him!" Maes smiled sincerely as he went back to cleaning the bite. "He really wanted that gig. I'll congratulate him tomorrow."

Roy frowned. Maes certainly didn't seem very upset. Then again, it wasn't as if he'd really been giving his all to get promoted lately... In fact, Major Hughes had been slacking on a lot of things for the past couple of months.

"I thought you wanted that promotion," Roy said, allowing accusation to creep into the words.

Hughes' shoulders tensed a little—whether it was from the pain in his wound or from the tone in his friend's voice, Roy couldn't tell. But then Maes set his jaw. "No," he said without looking up, "_You_ _wanted me_ to want that promotion."

"What, so you don't want to get promoted now? Is that it?" Roy demanded, starting to get angry. He leaned toward him and lowered his voice. "Have you forgotten our goals?"

"No, it's not that... It's just..."

"It's just _what_?"

Maes sighed, obviously tired. He put down the soaked, bloody swatch of gauze and took up several fresh ones to lay over the wound. "...I don't know, Roy," he said quietly as he started to wrap a length of bandage around his thigh to keep the gauze in place.

Silence took the room for a minute, cradling it in cold hands like an unloving parent.

"...If you want out of this, Maes..." Roy began slowly, regretfully, "then tell me now. As much as I am depending on you to help push me to the top, I can understand having second thoughts. I have other options. I just need to know if you're backing out before we get any deeper together. It's only going to get harder from here, so tell me now."

"I'm not backing out! I just... I need some time. I have more responsibilities than serving you, you know."

"I understand that, but you made commitments to me long before you ever had a wife and child. If you aren't with me one hundred percent, then don't bother being with me at all."

"You can't ask me to choose you over my family. That isn't fair," Maes mumbled as he tried to tie off the bandage, but the angle was awkward and he couldn't get it to knot properly.

"I'm not asking you to do that," Roy shot back, a little hurt, "I just need to know that I can depend on you to do everything you can to get more power in the military so that you can better support me... and lately, I can't say that you've been trying very hard."

Maes looked up at him again, wounded, and the tentative knot in his bandage came loose again. "I _have_ been trying!"

"Not hard enough. You didn't even care about that promotion. You're distracted, tired."

"I have a baby at home! I'm _going_ to be distracted and tired for a while! You're just going to have to deal with that for a few months if you want me to keep serving you." He took the ends of the bandaged and started trying to tie it again. "Besides, why the hell would I want to be in the _Treasury_ department? How would that help either of us?"

"You'd raise a rank. A Lieutenant Colonel has a lot more power than a Major, no matter the department."

"Yeah, but this isn't just your career on the line; it's mine too. I don't want to be a damn treasurer. I have enough desk work as it is."

"Fine. Then what do you want?"

Maes cursed under his breath and gave up trying to tie the bandage. Roy snorted in dry amusement and knelt to tie it for him.

"Well, first off I want you to lay off me for a while," Maes said, watching him work. "I don't have the energy to do everything you're expecting of me, on top of my _actual_ job and taking care of my family. Secondly... I'd like to move further up in Investigations."

"Really?" Roy asked, surprised and pleased. He looked up at his friend. "I was working under the assumption that you wanted a less hazardous line of work, because of your wife and the baby..."

"Gracia knew what line of work I was interested in when she married me. She supports me."

"Maes, that's fantastic!" he said, tying the knot perhaps a little more enthusiastically than he should have. Maes yelped in pain. "Sorry. But this is great. Investigations is a prestigious sect and they have high-ranking openings every year or so. It also means that you can be out in the field with me on occasion instead of stuck behind a desk. It's perfect."

"Glad I have your blessing," Maes groaned, running a careful hand over his bandaged thigh before pulling his pants back on. "But, for the time being, just go easy on me. I have a lot going on right now and I need a fucking _break_."

That didn't sit very well with Roy, but he grudgingly supposed that Maes deserved a little rest and nodded in agreement. He got to his feet and seated himself on the couch next to his friend.

"...How's the family, then?" he ventured, more at ease now. "Still sick?"

"Yeah..." He took the half-empty scotch glass and drained it, then took Roy's out of his hand and drained a good two-thirds of that too before handing it back. Roy glared at him, but didn't complain. "Elysia's getting better, but Gracia's still pretty sick. I just hope I don't catch it... As if I need _another_ difficulty in my life right now."

"Is it really that bad?"

He rubbed his temples. "I don't know... I'm just really stressed out. I hate going to work, I hate being at home... I just wish I could get away from _everything_ for a while, you know?"

Roy looked at him, taken a little off guard by how... un-Maes that statement was. He must really be overwhelmed if even home and family held no solace for him. Now that he thought about it, though, Maes had been kind of twitchy since Elysia's birth. He was constantly tired and snapped more than he typically did. Poor Gracia had suffered some bad infections directly after giving birth, which had lowered her immune system and left her open to other sicknesses, so Maes was frequently running the household on his own. From the pictures that he shoved in Roy's face and the near-nightly phone calls where he gushed about how the baby could lift up her head all by herself now however, it seemed to Roy that Maes welcomed this new life...

Hm. Whatever the case, Roy silently decided to watch his friend a little more closely and observe him. Maybe something was up that Maes just didn't want to talk about. Maybe he was hiding something.

"Perhaps you should take a vacation."

Maes swallowed and then, with what Roy could tell was a great effort, he smiled. "No, I'm fine. I'm just grumpy. I need sleep."

"I'll call you a cab, then," he said, standing, "And I want you to go to the clinic tomorrow to have them look at that bite."

"Yes, Mother."

Roy gave him a dirty look and went to the phone. He dialed a number and looked back at his friend. Maes' head was leaning against the back of the couch, his weary eyes closed.


	2. Love and Fevers

((A/N: Not much of an update here, but I've been battling a fever for the past several days so I figure a shortish chapter is forgivable. I'll try for something longer by next weekend)

* * *

Maes unlocked his front door and went in as quietly as he could.

Gracia was asleep on the couch. She was curled into a ball under a heavy blanket, her sweet face just barely visible above the pink-and-blue floral spread. He watched her sleep for a moment, love swelling his heart painfully, and shaming him. As rough as the road of being a family man was, he wouldn't give it up for the world. He should have just come straight home to his wife and child instead of walking alone. Maybe the dog bite was a sign that he just needed to be home more and not let the stress get to him so much.

He leaned over and gently touched his lips to her brow. She was a little feverish still, but cooler than she had been that morning. She gave a cute, muffled little squeak at his touch and shifted a little in her sleep, but then fell still again. He smiled down at her lovingly, then tucked the blanket a little more snugly around her legs and headed off down the hallway.

He looked in on Elysia in her nursery at the end of the hall. She was sleeping beautifully: a secure, pink little bundle nestled in her cradle. That painful feeling of love in Maes' chest doubled. He whispered a soft goodnight and turned to his own room.

He flopped down onto the bed and kicked off his boots. He took off his glasses and put them on the nightstand. He stretched out on the bed, hissing at the pain in his leg as he moved it. Then, still more or less fully dressed, he closed his eyes and took a deep, contented breath.

He was almost asleep when a high, plaintive wail echoed from down the hallway. Elysia was awake.

Maes clenched his jaw, convinced himself that rolling over and screaming into his pillow till morning probably wouldn't do him any good, and so opted to drag his tired, aching body back out of bed and tend to his daughter.

* * *

Oscar Brentford stood on his porch in the cold, his old bones aching. The military officer standing in front of him had a little notepad in one hand and a pen in the other.

"And you say it went that way?" He gestured to his left.

"Yessir. Dog big as a bear, went right down that there alley. Scared it off by banging two trashcan lids together. Bang! Like that. Weren't hardly an hour ago."

The officer grunted and made a note in his book.

"Is it your dog?" Oscar asked.

"It belongs to the military, yes." The man's voice was flat and professional, holding nothing of the kind lilt that that other military man's voice had carried. The one that got bit. He'd seemed nice. A proper gentleman, not like this cold boy here.

"Listen Mr. Brentford," the man said as one of his subordinates stepped forward and produced a small rectangle of cardstock. "Here's my card. Call me if you or anyone you know sees the dog again." Then he smiled an eerie smile that left his light gray eyes absolutely frozen. "Have a pleasant evening."

The men got back into their military vehicles without preamble. The way that they moved loudly stated that they were busy people and had other matters to attend to. Oscar almost spoke up before they drove off, to tell them that someone in their ranks had already had an injurious encounter with the beast and might be able to tell them more... but then he figured that they probably already knew that and had already spoken with him.

So Oscar shivered in the cold night, wrapped his green-and-blue plaid robe more tightly around himself, then climbed the short steps up to his apartment and went inside.

* * *

Maes opened his eyes to the sunrise-gray light that touched the ceiling of his bedroom. He yawned and rubbed his face, then jumped a little as he felt something beside him move.

"Morning," Gracia greeted, her voice hoarse from coughing. She must have gotten up from the couch and come to bed after Maes had fallen asleep. She snuggled up against his side and he put an arm around her. The feverish heat of her body against his was soothing and, for some reason, almost erotic. He knew that she still wasn't feeling well though, and would probably not fancy the idea of a quick romp before he had to leave for work. So he just held her for a while, comforted by her smell—Gods above, had she always smelled this good?—and the feel of her skin under his hands.

"How you feelin'?" he asked her, stifling another yawn.

"A little better," she sniffled. "I only used _one_ box of tissues yesterday; aren't you proud?"

"Oh, _so_ proud," he chuckled, squeezing her. She gave a scratchy laugh in reply that quickly dissolved into a coughing fit. She turned her face away from him and covered her mouth with the quilted pink sleeve of her nightgown.

Maes gave a soft, worried little whimper and sat up.

The room around him rocked suddenly and he almost fell back down against his soft mattress. A loud roaring filled his ears and, for just a moment, he felt as if all of the oxygen had been violently sucked from his lungs.

"M-Maes?" Gracia hacked, looking up at him as she fought to stop coughing. She wiped her watering eyes on the back of her hand and sat up. "What's wrong?"

Maes couldn't answer her for a moment, still breathless from whatever it was that had taken hold of him, but after a beat he was able to suck in a harsh breath.

"...Sweetheart?" Gracia's eyes were wide and still over-moist, looking impossibly blue in the morning light. She cupped his face in her hand, concerned, and Maes had never wanted her so intensely and so savagely as he abruptly did the moment her fingers touched his cheek. And then he could see her lying beneath him, writhing, sweating, calling out his name in ecstasy... "Maes, are you alright?"

Maes shook himself, banishing that passionate image from his mind. Where the hell had _that_ come from?

"Yeah... yeah I'm okay..." Maes managed shakily, pushing his hair out of his eyes. His brow was hot and clammy. "I think I almost blacked out just now. I got a little dizzy, that's all. Sat up too fast, I guess."

"Oh no, I hope you're not getting sick..." she tisked, moving her hand up to his brow. "You are a little warm."

"I don't feel sick... Just a little light headed. I lost a little blood yesterday, maybe that's it."

"Wait, you're hurt?"

Maes almost launched into an explanation of last night's encounter with the dog, but he was suddenly wary of telling her about it. He wasn't sure why. It was like there was a soft voice in the back of his head telling him to just keep it to himself. It would only worry her anyway. It was no big deal. No need to trouble her with something so unimportant, right? It barely even hurt. He was fine.

"..._Oh_ yeah. I got the nastiest paper-cut on my finger. Just _gushed_ blood. Look." He reached his hand over and showed her the narrow slice on the tip of his index finger. It wasn't a complete lie, at least. Half of HQ had probably heard him cursing his head off after he'd done it. Paper-cuts _hurt_.

"My poor baby..." she mock-crooned, giving him a less-than-sympathetic pat on his arm.

"It nearly killed me."

"I'm sure it did, sweetheart."

He chuckled and kissed her on the cheek, telling her to go back to sleep while he got ready for work. She didn't need to be told twice. She closed her eyes as Maes regretfully got out of bed. As he stood, though, that dizzy breathlessness took him again and he only barely managed to stumble into the bathroom and close the door before his wife could notice.

He leaned against the counter over the sink, head bowed, sucking in huge lungfuls of air in an attempt to dissuade his body from blacking out. Maybe he should just stay home today. He felt fine otherwise, but he wasn't going to be much use at work if he kept swooning like this.

Besides, it might be nice to spend all day in bed with Gracia...

Once again he saw his wife in his mind's eye, her hips raising to meet his, the two of them tangled in the soft sea of their bed sheets, her fingernails digging hard into his back and sides...

Maes shook himself. God, what the hell was wrong with him today...?

He ardently decided that it wouldn't be a very good idea for him to call out from work in his current, weirdly sexual mindset... He and Gracia probably wouldn't get much rest if he did stay home, anyway. So, instead he turned away from his reflection over the sink and took a cold shower.

A very, very cold shower.


	3. Lust and Hate

Roy leaned back in his chair, loving the smell of the leather and the antique sound of its quiet creaking. To him, it was more than a simple desk chair, elegant as it was. No, it was a symbol. His chair, his desk, his office, his _staff_... all of them were a symbol of his growing power.

Each day Roy Mustang was coming closer and closer to his goal. Sometimes it didn't feel like it. Sometimes he wanted to give up and admit to everyone that he was too weak to do this, no matter how much support his carefully chosen people gave him. Sometimes he just wanted to put his head down and blindly follow the Fuhrer the way all of his superiors did, no matter how deeply he hated the warmongering, soulless direction that this country was being led. Sometimes it just seemed easier to just shut down and forget his dreams. Sometimes it seemed safer that way...

But sometimes... _sometimes_ the fire in his breast burned so hot that he could hardly sit still. The excitement in him boiled and he felt the delicious weight of his commitment pressing against him like an eager lover. This was _right_. He was doing something magnificent and important. He walked down the pristine hallways of Central HQ, saluting the stuffy generals and colonels who passed him by, silently rejoicing in the thought that he would be above them someday. He was going to make them grovel and repent for every criminal political act they had ever committed... every document that they had known was a dangerous, sinful sham and had signed anyway...

Roy took a deep, contented breath, trying to contain the glorious feeling within him.

Soon. Perhaps sooner than he'd thought.

Last night, when Maes had stumbled in to Roy's apartment covered in blood, exhausted, and frustrated, yet had still maintained that he was forever pledged to Roy and his cause... Roy's heart had almost exploded with pride and brotherly love. And to then hear that Maes was willing to keep going for high-risk positions was wonderful news. Roy had to admit that he'd begun to lose faith in Maes a little since his marriage, but that faith had now been renewed tenfold. And the timing couldn't be better.

Roy had, sitting on the desk in front of him, a file. But not just any file, oh no. No, it was an incident report that was supposed to be sent to Investigations. Roy had just been in the right place at the right time and had snagged it, assuring the department's secretary that he had the perfect man for the job already lined up. If Maes wanted to break into Investigations and make a fast, lasting impression, then this was his ticket in.

Roy hadn't gone over the contents of the file completely yet, but he had glanced over it enough to know that this was big. Ooh, it was _big_.

An experimental military weapon... was _missing_.

What information Roy had gleaned from the report was purposefully vague, the huge, red _CLASSIFIED_ stamp on the front cover immediately telling Roy that most of the scoop was strictly on a need to know basis and would only be delivered by sanctioned request. Roy had already made the call and he knew that he'd be receiving the rest of the information shortly.

It was only eight-thirty in the morning, and already Roy felt the awesome sensation of great accomplishment bounding toward him from over the horizon. Today was going to be a glorious day; he could tell.

"Well, someone looks pleased with himself," Hawkeye smirked, heavily dropping a thick stack of unfiled documents onto his desk. He looked at the formidable stack, but then he smiled, not about to let his spirits be dampened.

"And I have good reason to be," he countered, stretching his arms over his head luxuriously.

"Oh?"

"The world is mine for the taking, Lieutenant. We're making history as we speak."

"I see. Hm. Well, I think that history can wait for the moment; I need those documents signed and transferred by noon."

He shot her a playfully dirty look and, still in too high of spirits to complain about it, began his daily tasks.

"...It's so weird when you're in a good mood," Breda said warily, eyeing at him from across the office. "Freaks me out."

Havoc and Fuery gave matching nods and mumbles of agreement.

"If he starts singing and dancing around the office again, I'm out of here," Havoc added, clipping a stack of papers together and handing them to Hawkeye.

Roy ignored them, still smiling to himself. They couldn't possibly understand. Not yet, anyway.

But they would.

"Good morning, Major."

Roy looked up at Hawkeye's voice to see Maes wander into the office. He looked around for a moment, apparently confused, but then his eyes landed on her and he blinked.

"Oh. 'Morning, Lieutenant."

"Hughes!" Roy greeted, standing. "The man of the hour! I have something that I want you to look at."

Maes stood there for a moment without moving, but then he stumbled forward, shooting an oddly suspicious glances toward Roy's staff. His eyes, Roy noticed, lingered on Hawkeye's flank perhaps a little longer than they should have.

"What?" Maes asked, sounding both uncomfortable and irritated.

Roy ignored his tone, taking up the classified file and offering it to him. "I have a case for you. This is it, my friend. If you break this case, you are all but _guaranteed_ that promotion."

Maes stared at the file. The muscles in his neck tensed as he finally reached out and took it. "...I thought I asked you to lay off for a while."

His words were very quiet.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Roy said, waving a hand dismissively. "But you can't pass this up. This is high military. We're missing a _biological warfare weapon_! Even if you can't find it, the attention you'd get from the higher-ups—"

"I'm not doing it."

Roy stopped, startled. "What?"

Maes raked a harsh, angry hand through his hair. "I said I'm not fucking _doing_ it! You said that you'd leave me the hell alone for a while and I expect you to keep your word! God, doesn't _anything_ matter to you other than your goddamn goals?"

"...Now wait just a min—"

Maes loomed closer, towering over Roy. The major really wasn't that much taller than Roy, but suddenly he seemed huge. His shoulders seemed broader, more muscular, flexing visibly from under his military jacket. He radiated aggression in a way that Roy had never felt before. In that instant he was terrifying. There was something savage about the way Maes was glowering at him, something completely inhuman.

But then Maes blinked and seemed to shake himself out of some kind of daze.

"If this case really means so much to you, then you do it," he growled after a short pause. He shoved the file hard against Roy's chest, pushing him back against his desk. "Damn you and damn your goals, _Lieutenant Colonel_. I quit. I'm done with this stupid fucking game of yours that we _all_ know you're never going to win."

Then he turned and stormed out of the room, not even sparing them a backward glance.

The office was silent for several beats after his departure. Roy just stared after his friend, utterly dumbfounded as he slowly seated himself back in his leather chair.

"What the hell was _that _about?" he demanded to no one in particular.

* * *

Maes didn't make it far after stomping out of the room. He was in the hallway, leaning against the wall beside the door, his hand over his mouth.

He wanted to go back in and apologize, to say that he hadn't meant a word of what he'd said, that he was just tired—and that was completely true—but he was terrified to go back in there.

Because for a second... just for a second while Roy was standing there in front of him...

He had wanted to kill him.

He had seen it vividly in his head, had watched the bright splash of red coat Roy's chest as Maes tore his throat out, he had smelled the blood, had tasted it, had hungered for it... and had loved every moment of it.

Because in that fiery, wrathful moment Maes had known—just _known_—that Roy was sleeping with Gracia. That was why he was trying to get him fixated on a new project, wasn't it? He was just trying to keep him busy, to get him out of the house and out of the office so that he could meet his wife for lecherous trysts in seedy hotel rooms. Just a series of quick fucks while Maes' back was turned...

Maes' stomach churned and he almost gagged. But he knew now that that couldn't be true. His mind was just playing tricks on him. He was sick and tired, that was all. There was no way in hell that Roy and Gracia were fooling around behind his back... Gracia wasn't Roy's type and Gracia honestly didn't like Roy very much...

"You know he didn't really mean that, sir," Hawkeye said suddenly. Maes could hear her smooth, confident voice coming from the open door of the office. "You said yourself that he's stressed out. Maybe he's starting to buckle under the pressure."

Maes held his breath and waited for Roy's reply, his hand still over his mouth.

"...Yeah. No, I know." Roy spoke quietly, sounding thoughtful. "Even if he meant it, he never would have said it to my face like that. I know him, and no matter how angry he gets, with me he still likes to dance around issues instead of being that direct."

That was true, Maes had to admit. Roy had a way of making it hard to be mad at him for any length of time, and he had an even greater talent for making it impossible to explain what, exactly, he had done to incite such anger in the first place. It was both endearing and infuriating.

"Then why would he say that?" Fuery sounded scandalized on behalf of his superior.

"He was trying to hurt me."

"But why?"

"That I don't know, Kain."

"You have been pretty hard on him lately, sir," Hawkeye rejoined.

"Not _that_ hard," Roy mumbled. "Did you _see_ the way he looked at me...? And _you_, for that matter?"

Maes stomach clenched again nauseously and he turned away from the office. He stumbled a little, the hallway around him swaying, but he managed to make it to the men's room without drawing any unwanted attention to himself. He just needed a minute alone to get a hold of himself, maybe splash some cold water on his face.

He wiped sweat from his hot brow and leaned over the sink, wondering whether or not he was going to be able to keep himself from throwing up.

Damn it, maybe Gracia had been right... he'd felt okay for the most part this morning, but now he felt terrible. He felt weak and sick. His head had started pounding on the walk to work and his tender stomach had begun rolling with nausea. He had almost just turned around and gone back home, but he'd already been halfway to the office before he started feeling sick enough to really think that he shouldn't be working today.

Not only was he sick, though... he just didn't feel right. His whole body ached as if he'd been working out. His muscles were stiff and taut and his biceps and calves felt like tense rocks under his skin. The dizziness from earlier this morning came and went, as did his impure thoughts of Gracia and a vivid, irrational distrust of just about everyone around him that bordered on a murderous hatred. Roy, Maes had come to realize just moments ago, gave him this feeling above and beyond anyone else that he'd run into today. How could he even think that he was betraying his trust? How could he think that about his best friend... or his _wife_ for that matter?

Maes' gorge rose again and this time he knew that there was no holding it back. With a moan, he turned to stagger into the closest bathroom stall. He fumbled the lock into place behind him, doubled over, and lost his breakfast into the toilet.

Maes vaguely registered the creak of the men's room's door opening as his stomach spasmed again and another mouthful of acid splashed into the porcelain bowl.

"Goddamnit..." Maes groaned to himself sickly, grabbing a fistful of toilet paper and wiping his mouth. "Ugh..."

"...Hughes? That you?"

It was Roy. Maes looked back and could see his booted feet from under the stall door.

"Yeah..." He coughed and wiped his mouth again, grimacing. He did _not_ want Roy in here right now. "It's me."

"You okay?"

"I guess. I think Gracia finally got me sick... I feel really weird."

"Ah. So is that what crawled up your ass and died?"

Maes didn't say anything, he just closed his eyes and bowed his head over the bowl.

Roy sighed, the sound echoing in the smallish, badly lit bathroom. "Go home, Maes," he said, sounding annoyed. "Anyone can see that you need some rest. Take a few days off. Go on a vacation. Go by yourself, if you feel like you need to. I'm sure that your wife can handle herself and the baby for a day or two if you need some time alone to get over whatever the hell this is that you're going through."

That hot wave of rage inundated Maes' chest again. It was suddenly stifling in this tiny stall. Sweat prickled on the back of his neck and on his chest and his hands shook with anger as they gripped the toilet's rim. Maybe Roy really _was_ trying to get rid of him. He wanted Maes gone, out of the city, so that he could sneak over into his home and sleep with Gracia. He thought he was so fucking smart, but Maes could practically smell her on his clothes. It was so _obvious_.

"_Are you fucking my wife_?"

The words seethed from between his teeth in a dark growl, low and enraged. The muscles in his arms and legs trembled with adrenaline, prepared and eager for violence. He was going to kill him. He was going to tear his face off and watch him bleed.

There was a long pause from Roy, then:

"What was that?" He sounded, for the first time, at a loss; perhaps even worried. "I think I... must have misheard you..."

That gentle tone in Roy's voice was like an icy slap in the face. Maes jolted and shook himself. He took a breath, then another, trying to calm down. He was being irrational. He was just sick and it was giving him strange thoughts. That's all. There was nothing going on between Roy and Gracia. _Nothing_.

"Maes?"

Maes swallowed. He spat in the toilet one final time, flushed it, and stood. He opened the stall and Roy was standing just beyond it, watching him closely.

"Nothing," Maes said to him quietly, "It's not important. I just... You're right. I need to go home. I think I'm really sick."

There was another short, tentative silence as Roy watched him make his way back over to the sink and turn it on. "Did you go to the clinic this morning about the bite?"

"Yeah..." he lied, not really sure why he was lying about it. It was that same voice whispering in the back of his head, the one that had told him to keep the injury secret from Gracia. "They just gave me some antibiotics and told me to keep it clean."

He took his glasses off, cupped his hands under the tap, and splashed his face with the frigid water. The cold seeped into his hot cheeks, instantly cooling and soothing him. He was okay. Everything was just fine. He just needed to go home and lie down for a while.

"Do you want me to have Havoc drive you home?" Roy asked, still hovering behind him uncertainly.

Maes pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped the water from his eyes. The anger was welling up again in his chest, just from feeling the man near him. Roy Mustang could not be trusted. Maes didn't want anything from him.

"No, I'll walk."

"It's no trouble..."

"I said _no_, Roy!" Maes hissed, crumpling up the damp paper towel and heatedly throwing it into the bin. "Just leave me the hell alone."

He slid his glasses back on, then he stalked past him, shoved open the door, and fled back out into the hallway.

Almost immediately he was calm again, gone from Roy's upsetting presence, but his insides clenched with a renewed anxiety. God, what the hell was wrong with him, that he couldn't even stand being in the same room with his best friend? How could he possibly feel such hatred and suspicion toward someone he loved so dearly? Was he really that mad at him about his hard-on for that damn promotion...? Was that it?

Maes waited a moment outside the restroom, half-hoping that Roy was going to follow him out and demand to know what was going on—not that Maes knew what to tell him—but the door to the men's room remained closed.

Maes wiped his brow, already damp with sweat again, then stumbled back down the hallway and headed home.

* * *

Roy took his time in the men's room. He pissed, washed his hands, dried them, and dampened down a particularly errant strand of his hair that had been tickling his cheek all morning.

As calm as he made himself look outwardly—even though he knew that no one was watching—his mind was racing. He didn't know what was going on. Something was up with Maes that went way beyond his illness. There was something on his mind that he didn't want Roy to know about... and Roy—adding together his conversation with Maes last night with what he'd just heard in this very men's room—now felt that Maes' hostility was fueled by something very troubling indeed.

From what Roy had gathered, it seemed as if Maes and Gracia Hughes were having some marital problems. Perhaps they had rushed in to having a child too soon after their marriage and Maes was having some trouble adjusting... Maes had said last night that he hated being at home, and that he was driven to exhaustion by his wife's and his new baby's sickness. Now... though Roy didn't want to believe what Maes had accused him of... there was no ignoring his words.

_Are you fucking my wife?_

Each syllable rang in Roy's head, the accusatory rage in his friend's voice something that he'd never heard before.

When had Roy ever given Maes even the faintest impression that he had _any_ kind of designs on his wife? Roy had only ever really spoken to the woman when he had to, when Maes insisted that he go out to dinner with them or on other vaguely uncomfortable social occasions. He didn't think that they had ever even been alone together for more than a few moments. Moreover, he got the distinct feeling that she didn't particularly care for him much and—though he would never say anything to Maes—the feeling was mutual.

Gracia had screwed up The Plan. The Plan was for Maes to dedicate himself—heart, mind, and soul—to getting Roy to the top. Maes swore up and down that, in spite of his obligations to his burgeoning family, he was still going to do everything that he had promised to help Roy reach his destiny... but it was becoming more and more apparent that it was all too much for Maes to handle all at once.

And it was that woman's fault.

Now Roy didn't really dislike her... she was nice and polite and—as Maes had repeatedly told him, in far more detail that he had ever wanted to hear—apparently a tigress in the sack. And she made Maes happy. She had made him so completely, deliriously happy, and so Roy could never really dislike her... but it still hurt. He just felt like he was in the middle of some goddamn custody battle with her, trying to get some meaningful, productive time with Maes while she fought to get exactly the same thing from him. And Roy knew without a doubt that Maes vividly felt the two of them pulling at him from different directions... perhaps that stress had just become too much of a strain on him.

Maes was in a foul mood and kept snapping at Roy to vent that side of his frustration... but what about his frustrations with Gracia and the baby?

Roy gave his hair one last check in the mirror. Fine. Slowly and calmly, he turned and exited the bathroom. Maes was nowhere to be seen. He shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled back toward his office.

Roy Mustang had a way with women. He always had at least one latched onto him at any given time. He enjoyed dating and he loved sex. Brief relationships were a vital stress reliever in his line of work and he honestly didn't think that he'd be able to survive the pressure of his job without the release that his many lady friends gave him.

There had only been a few times when these relationships had become a little more serious than casual dating. And, in each of these instances, Roy had—he was not proud to admit—panicked. When a man uses relationships as stress relief, allowing these relationships to develop into something serious causes far more anxiety than not dating at all. Unable to make himself end it with whomever's heart he had stolen, he had sought that desperate release from other women.

Yes, he was a cheater. Or, he _had_ been when he had been young enough and stupid enough to allow himself to get trapped into relationships that he felt he could not get out of. And while he had been cheating, desperately hiding it from his then-girlfriend, in his mind he began to grow suspicious of her own actions. She had actually been the one to end the relationship, tired of Roy accusing her of sleeping around.

Those who do wrong and fear suspicion often become unreasonably suspicious themselves. A guilty conscience sees guilt in others, even if there is no guilt to be seen.

Roy stepped back into his office and took his seat again behind his desk, his good mood earlier completely demolished by a dark pensiveness.

"Sir?"

He looked up. Hawkeye was standing in front of his desk. "Are you alright?"

Roy didn't say anything for a beat. He leaned back in his chair and listened to it creak, but this time he took no pleasure from the sound.

"What would you say to me..." he began quietly, "if I told you that I thought Hughes might be having an affair?"

"I'd say that you were insane," she answered, eyes narrowing.

He nodded and started on his paperwork again. "That's what I thought you'd say."


	4. Terror and Telephone Conversations

The first thing that greeted Maes as he entered his home was Elysia's piercing wail. His insides clenched and he almost just turned around and left again, not wanting to deal with her or her crying. But then he took a breath, reminded himself of how much he loved her, and came inside.

"Sweetheart?" Gracia's voice called curiously. She poked her head out from the kitchen doorway, Elysia cradled to her chest. "What are you doing home?"

"Sick." He closed the front door and tossed his coat over the arm of a chair. He'd taken it off before he'd even made it halfway home; in spite of the frost on the ground and the slush in the streets, Maes was sweating as if it were the height of summer. "Mustang sent me home after I started throwing up."

"Oh, honey..."

Elysia gave another loud squall of infantine misery and Gracia tucked her a little closer against her chest. She quieted a little and snuggled against Gracia's breasts, whimpering.

"She's been fussy today," she explained, gently patting the baby's tiny back. "I think she's starting to feel better and it's making her a little restless. I don't think she likes how much I want her to sleep, but I know she's exhausted..."

Maes smiled softly at the two of them, soothed a little by the calming sound of his wife's voice. He reached over and cupped the side of his daughter's head, loving the feel of her soft, almost featherlike hair against his palm. Gracia smiled back, her eyes—though bloodshot and watery from her cold—full to bursting with love. She stood up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

But then she stepped back, looking startled. "Maes, you're burning up." She cradled Elysia in one arm and reached up to put her hand to Maes' cheek. Her hand felt deliciously cool against his fevered skin and he leaned into her touch with a soft moan. "Maybe you should lay down for a while... should I call the doctor?"

"No, it's okay. I'm sure I just caught your cold, there's no need to bother Dr. Trudeau. But I think I will go lay down for a bit if you don't mind."

"Alright. I'm going to try and put Elysia down again, then I think I'll come join you."

Maes grunted and she kissed him again, tenderly on the lips. He kissed her back, suddenly spellbound by her touch. She hadn't been letting him kiss her on the mouth for the past few days, afraid of getting him sick, but since he was already sick he supposed that she thought it would be okay... and it just melted him. He took her by the shoulders and deepened the kiss, snaking his tongue into her mouth and holding her hard against him.

Gracia chuckled and pushed him off a little, if only to give little Elysia a little breathing room. "Behave," she warned him, her lips brushing against his chin. "And go lie down."

Reluctantly, he let her go and wandered off toward the bedroom. He pulled off his military jacket and hung it in the closet, sighing with relief. Why the hell was it so hot in here? His maroon cotton t-shirt was nearly soaked through with sweat. With a groan, he moved into the bathroom and turned on the cold water in the sink full blast.

He grabbed a washrag and dampened it under the spray, then wiped his face and the back of his neck with the cool cloth. It helped a little, but not much.

He wet the cloth again and held it to the side of his face. He opened his sore eyes and looked at his reflection. Pathetic. His eyes were red and his cheeks were flushed and he badly needed to shave. He'd shaved that morning, but it didn't look as if he'd done a very good job. He looked like he hadn't shaved in days. He could use a haircut, too. It was longer than he liked it, even though he could have sworn that he'd only gotten it cut a couple of weeks ago...

All around, he looked rather unkempt. Shaggy, even.

Not really feeling like he should be caring about his appearance much at the moment, Maes turned the water off and hung the rag on the cool metal neck of the tap. He went back into his room, dropped onto the bed, yanked his shoes off, and fell backward onto the mattress. The ceiling above him was spinning, very slowly, counter-clockwise.

His whole body tingled and itched.

He closed his hot, stinging eyes as he tried to find slumber, but it evaded him. Still, he did doze a little, listening to Gracia distantly moving through the house, occasionally cooing something to Elysia as she tried to get her to sleep.

After a while—Maes couldn't tell how long exactly—he heard her soft footsteps as she padded into the bedroom. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

"She's finally down. Napping like an angel," she sighed, sounding tired but content. She lowered herself onto the bed next to him and burrowed against his side. "I _knew_ she was tired."

The heat of her body was maddening. Maes swallowed and tried to ignore the sudden wave of lust that slammed into him like a steam train, pretending not to feel the uncomfortable stirrings in his groin and the renewed prickling of sweat at his temples.

"I say we join her in napping while we can," Gracia continued, yawning. Maes felt her sweet breath against the side of his neck and his whole body tensed, that hungry yearning that he'd felt this morning uncoiling—tenfold—from the pit of his stomach.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was on top of her. She squeaked in surprise, her pale eyes blinking up at him. "Maes, what—"

But then his mouth was against hers, silencing her. He kissed her hard, his whole body pressing her down against the bed. She shifted uncomfortably beneath him, kissing him back but not as enthusiastically as he would have liked. He reached down to run a hand up her thigh, hiking up her nightgown.

Gracia turned her head to the side sharply, breaking the kiss. "Darling, we're both sick..." she reminded him gently. "I'm really not feeling up to it."

He said nothing, just moved his lips down to the exposed side of her neck. His roaming hand found the hem of her panties and started to tug them down. He forced his knee down between her legs to keep them apart.

"I'm being serious, Maes," she reiterated, her voice sounding a little more stern. She took his groping fingers in one hand and pressed the other against his chest, letting him know that she wasn't in the mood for his advances.

Maes yanked his hand out of Gracia's and grabbed both of her wrists, holding them tightly and forcing them to her sides. He was hard, and she was his, and he _wanted_ her, damn it. Right now. She was his mate and it was her _duty_ to submit to him.

She made an attempt to free one of her hands and he tightened his grip until she winced. He loomed over her, his face inches from hers, dominating her with his stare. She looked away.

The _whore_.

Her reluctance only proved that she was fucking Roy. She was probably fucking everyone. Men from all around the city probably snuck in while Maes was away at work, to screw her senseless and then laugh about it later. They were all playing Maes for a fool, but he knew their game now. He had been blind not to see it before.

But now it would end. Maes would make her submit to him and _only_ him. Or, if she continued to refuse, he would kill her. He was already going to kill Roy. He would lap the blood from his destroyed eye sockets and celebrate his death by chewing through bone and cartilage to get at the rich, tender flesh of his heart. He would kill them both if he had to. She would be nothing but meat to him if she would not be faithful.

Gracia's eyes widened slightly as he began to growl. The sound was deep and resonating as it rumbled from his chest and throat. It was the sound of distant thunder, of a coming storm. He bared his teeth at her, ready to tear into her slender neck and feast on the veins and sinew if she denied him again.

"...Maes, you're hurting me."

Her voice was not reproachful, nor was it stern as it had been just a few seconds ago. It was very quiet and uncertain-sounding. The way Roy's voice had been uncertain back in the men's room at work. It was the kind of voice that people speak in when they know that something is very wrong, but don't know what it is. It's a fearful kind of voice, as tentative as a child's.

A chill of horror ran down Maes' back and he let her go, pushing himself off of her and staggering to his feet.

"S-sorry..." he stammered, backing away from the bed. "Gracie, I'm sorry..."

She sat up slowly, rubbing one of her wrists as she eyed him. "It's okay. I've been sick and we've both been busy... I know it's been a while." She sounded like she was trying to just shrug it off, but even Maes—from somewhere beneath the whir of self-hatred—could hear the caution in her voice.

"That's no excuse. I just... I don't feel well. I-I'm going to get some water."

And he fled. He stumbled to the kitchen, shaking, the nausea in his gut now accompanied with a twisting, stabbing kind of pain. His whole body felt like it was burning and his skin crawled with both self-revulsion and sickness.

With a badly trembling hand, he took a glass down from the cabinet and filled it at the sink with cold water. He drank it down quickly, the icy liquid freezing his insides. He filled himself another glass and downed that too before putting it aside, gasping.

_Oh god, I was going to rape her..._ The realization barreled into him like a hammer-blow and his knees threatened to send him sprawling onto the tiled floor. _I was going to kill her..._

"What's wrong with me?" he whispered to no one. Even his voice sounded strange to him. It was too deep and grating, like a smoker's voice.

Maes' stomach convulsed and he doubled over the sink as the cold water pumped itself back out of his mouth. He vomited hard, so hard that it was like a kick to the gut and every muscle and bone within him screamed.

He was sick. Something was wrong, the fever was fucking with his head. He was so, so sick...

But then something touched him on the shoulder and every nerve in his suffering body was alive and alert.

_Enemy!_ His instincts barked, _Kill it!_

Fists clenched, he spun.

* * *

There was a flash of light and a bright burst of pain.

Gracia opened her eyes, stunned where she was sitting on the floor in a heap, and looked up at her husband. His hands were over his mouth, his over-bright eyes huge.

It took her several beats to realize that he had struck her.

"Ohshit, ohshit, ohshit...!" he said from behind his hands, his muffled voice so high and startled that Gracia almost laughed. He hit his knees in front of her, taking her face in one hand. "Gracia, darling, I'm so sorry! You... you startled me and I just... Oh, _shit_."

"Maes, I'm okay," she assured him, and she was. Her left eye and cheek ached where the back of Maes' fist had made contact with her face and she was admittedly a little woozy, but she was fine. "Just a little bump."

"Just sit still, let me get you some ice," he said tightly, sounding scared. He scrambled around the kitchen to find a tea towel, then rummaged in the icebox for ice before slamming the door shut and lowering himself back onto the floor. "H-here..."

She took the improvised icepack and put it to her eye, grimacing.

"Gracia, you have to forgive me... I'm so, so sorry... You know that I would _never_..."

"Honey, I know...!" she said in surprise, both touched and a little worried by the fear in his eyes, "It was just an accident. It's okay, really. Remember that time I opened the hall door too fast and gave you a bloody nose? Accidents happen."

He said nothing. He looked like he was going to cry.

She chuckled a little and kissed his cheek, trying to lighten his mood. "Honestly, you're such a worry-wart. What are you going to do when Elysia starts walking? Or if she ever breaks a bone?"

"That's not going to happen, because I'm not going to let her out of that crib again until she's thirty." He was trying to play along with her joke, but his heart just wasn't in it. He swallowed hard, a little calmer but still clearly very upset. Cautiously, he reached up and pulled the icepack away from Gracia's face. He bit his lip, concern deepening the creases of his brow.

He looked different somehow, Gracia thought. His face looked leaner and his shoulders looked broader. His eyes were too green. And when had his hair gotten so long?

Maes cursed and shook his head. "Aw, baby, I think it's gonna bruise... I can't believe I just gave my wife a black eye...!"

"I'll just say I got it in a bar-fight," she teased, grabbing onto Maes' shoulder and pulling herself up so that she could stand. She took the icepack from him and put it to her face again. "It's not like I've never had a black eye before. I was a pretty crazy gal back in the day, you know."

He just looked at her and stood silently, as if he didn't know what to do. He still looked liable to burst into tears at any second.

"Sweetheart, I'm okay! _Really_." She reached out a consoling hand, but he shied away from her.

"I hit you," he breathed.

"It was an accident! I—"

"A-and back in the bedroom..."

"Maes..." She tried to put her hand on his arm again, but he jerked backward.

"_Don't_." He was breathing hard suddenly, as if he was having a panic attack. "You need to keep away from me. It isn't safe."

"It isn't _safe_?"

"I'm _dangerous_!" He took a deep breath and it burst from him again in a sick sob. "You don't even know... The things going on in my head..."

Slowly, Gracia lowered the icepack and put it down on the counter. He was trembling and sweating and tears were starting to make their slow trek down his flushed cheeks. His too-long hair hung in his face, shielding his bright, unnaturally green eyes.

Looking at him, right then, Gracia understood that there was something very... _not right_ with her husband. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

"Maybe we should call the doctor." She spoke quietly, as if afraid of spooking him, and took a step forward.

"I told you to keep away from me!" he shouted, hugging himself.

She stopped and went still again, fear beginning to crawl up into the soft wetness of her heart. She stayed silent and just waited.

He shook his head and wiped his face, still breathing hard. "I h-have to go," he sniffled after a beat, then walked past her out of the kitchen.

"Go where?" She didn't dare to speak above a murmur as she followed him to the front door.

He shook his head, not looking at her as he opened the door. "I dunno. Away."

"But why? Maes, what's going on with you? What's wrong?"

He turned and met her gaze and she balked. His eyes were wild and abruptly angry, full of something unspeakable. It might have been madness, or a touch of the crazed lust that she had seen and felt from him in the bedroom and had forcefully shrugged off. But whatever it was it made Gracia physically ill, and more terrified than she could possibly describe.

"I love you, Gracia," he rasped finally, breaking the silence. "I'm going to stay at Roy's for a while. I need..." he trailed off with a sharp, painful laugh and covered his face, visibly fighting tears again. "I don't know what I need. Just let me go. It's not safe for me to be here."

Because she was frightened and confused and knew there was nothing that she could do to stop him, she whispered, "...Okay."

He heard the pain in her voice and she saw it slice through him. His eyes brimmed anew. "I'll call you tomorrow."

She nodded, but couldn't make herself speak again.

He nodded back, then walked out the door and closed it firmly behind him. His exit drove a gust of the freezing afternoon wind into the room from the world outside, and Gracia shivered.

It wasn't until over an hour later—when Gracia was reclining on the couch, holding the icepack to her quickly swelling face—that she realized that he had forgotten his overcoat.

She lifted it from the arm of the chair, then stretched out on the couch cushions and tucked it under her head.

She closed her eyes, but did not sleep.

* * *

"_Do you still really think that the Major is cheating on his wife?_"

"Well, no... I mean... Maybe..."

"_So indecisive. It's unlike you, sir_." Hawkeye's voice was wry over the phone lines.

"It was the first explanation for his behavior that popped into my head," Roy told her a little testily as he sank back into his plush couch. Night had fallen outside the window. It had been a long day. "And my first instinct is rarely wrong... but you're right, it sounds ridiculous."

It did sound ridiculous. Roy knew that it did, considering how much he knew that Maes loved his wife... but still, it made sense. Hawkeye hadn't seen the way that Maes had looked at her, in that lecherous, leering way that men often devoured women with their eyes. Roy knew that look all too well—hell, he'd invented that look—but to see that hunger in Maes' eyes, directed toward someone who was not his wife, was deeply unsettling. As much as Roy didn't want to believe it, he wasn't going to take the affair theory off the table just yet.

"_But something _is_ wrong with him_."

"Yes. Something is wrong with him," Roy agreed, holding the phone against his ear with his shoulder as he picked up a file off of his coffee table. "I was hoping he'd call me, but I haven't heard from him since he left work. Whatever his problem is, I'll let him keep that to himself. For now. But now it looks like I'm stuck with this case..."

"_You couldn't get anyone else to take it?_"

"No. Armstrong is working another case and Daryn practically laughed in my face when I suggested he take it. Pompous asshole."

"_Seems like the case isn't nearly as important or interesting now that you have to do all the work yourself, is it?"_

"...Shut up."

She gave a short laugh, amused. "_Have you made any headway yet?_"

He sighed. "Not really. I can't focus on it." He opened the file as he continued, "It seems like it's circling around some kind of viral warfare. The infected enemies—in theory—supposedly turn on their own men and start to follow our orders instead. It says here that they're still working out the kinks..."

"_Sounds powerful_."

"Sounds like bullshit to me. I'll believe that when I see it."

"_Ever the realist_."

"I mean, listen to this: '..._the virus is spread from soldier to soldier through bites that carriers inflict in the final stage of their infection_... blah, blah, blah... _those infected will be easily identifiable by obvious lupine (wolf) qualities. During and after the initial transformation, test subjects are violent and unpredictable, most likely caused by the primal instincts imprinted into them by the animal DNA..._' What does that sound like to you?"

"_Like a bad science fiction novel, to be honest_."

"That's a nice way of saying 'bullshit'."

"_Exactly_."

"I'll have to read through it better, but I think that most of this is just theory, that they just lost some vital component to their 'virus'." He sighed again, harshly, and rubbed his eyes. "What did I get myself into?"

"_Better you than Hughes. He needs a break, and if you promised to leave him alone for a while..._"

"I know, I know. I told you to shut up." He tossed the file back onto the table. "...I'll talk to him tomorrow."

"_Good. On that note, I'm going to bed_."

"See you in the morning."

"_Sleep well, sir_."

They hung up their respective phones and Roy, after a brief consideration, decided that he, too, should go to bed.

He would call Maes tomorrow. He didn't expect him to come in to work. In fact, if Maes showed up in the office tomorrow morning, Roy had already decided that he was going to send him home again. The man was clearly ill... among other things.

In fact, Roy thought to himself as he undressed, perhaps he'd stop by his house and speak to him face-to-face tomorrow evening. With Gracia present, maybe Roy would be able to read their relationship a little better, to see if something was indeed wrong between them.

Satisfied with this plan, Roy prepared himself for bed.

After a strong nightcap, he slipped into bed and slept dreamlessly.


	5. Sick and Wrong

Maes awoke, then wondered if he'd ever really been asleep at all.

He awoke to the pain in his gut, in his muscles and bones. He moaned and rolled over, hoping to alleviate some of the sharp pressure. His spine and hip popped as he moved, as if they were shifting on their own somehow. He whimpered and buried his face into the rough sheets, smelling laundry soap and the faint, musty undertone of the thousands of other people who had lain here.

He awoke to an unfamiliar hotel room, to an unfamiliar bed. His shirt was on the floor, beside the radiator that he'd turned off on the way in. He had opened the windows and night was fast approaching, billowing out the pale curtains with a blessedly chill breeze, making them look like amorphous ghosts hovering beside the bed. As if Death itself was beside him, waiting.

It had to be near-freezing in the small, dark room, but Maes' over-heated body still burned so feverishly that the bedding beneath him was sopping wet and beginning to gather ice-crystals at the edges. A hard shudder raked through him, pinpoints of pain igniting fires in his joints and on the surface of his skin. He rolled over again on the sweat-soaked sheets, gasping.

It was so hot. Something was wrong.

The curtains swayed.

He should have gone to Roy's, like he'd told Gracia he was going to. He had been only yards away from his apartment, and he had a copy of his key to let himself in and wait for Roy to get off of work... but he just couldn't make himself go. Something deep inside him had told him not to. It told him to hide, to just go somewhere, anywhere, and _hide_. He was dangerous. He'd proven that to Gracia, hadn't he? He needed to put himself away for a while. He had to save her and Elysia—and even Roy—from himself.

The curtains flicked shadows across his brow. He closed his eyes against the dimness of the room and the haunting dance of the curtains, desperate to find painlessness in sleep.

Somewhere outside, skulking in the back alleys of Central, an animal opened its bloodied jaws and howled into the cold.

* * *

Roy left work early. Not unreasonably early, but about an hour; enough to make Hawkeye give him That Look as he grabbed his keys and the files he needed to go over during the weekend. Hell, it was Friday and it had been a long week. What was an hour at the end of the day?

So he headed home, deciding to walk rather than further risk Hawkeye's wrath by stealing Havoc away to drive him. Besides, he needed to stop by and talk to Maes and his wife before he went home. He sighed to himself as he strolled down the darkening street, not looking forward to his arrival at the Hughes household.

Still, it needed to be done, and it needed to be done now.

Before he knew it, he was climbing onto their front porch. Already he could hear the muffled sound of the baby's crying coming from somewhere within the house. He sighed, knowing that this was probably not going to go well even as he raised his fist and politely knocked on the door.

"Just a moment!" Gracia's voice called from beyond the door. The crying quieted and died and, a moment later, the door eased open a few inches.

Mrs. Hughes stood in the doorway with a quiet—though teary-eyed—Elysia cradled in one arm. She'd only opened the door just enough for it not to be rude, the edge of the door itself obscuring more than half of her face, as if she were shy.

"...Good evening, Lieutenant Colonel." Her voice was soft, her tone full of meaning as if she knew exactly why he was here.

* * *

She was relieved to see him standing on her doorstep, but also a little frightened. No doubt, Maes had sent him over to deliver a message... depending on what it was, though, Gracia wasn't entirely sure that she was ready to hear it.

Because maybe the message was that Maes never wanted to come back...

But no. That could never happen. Gracia felt foolish for even entertaining the thought.

"Could I possibly speak to you for a moment, Mrs. Hughes?" Lieutenant Colonel Mustang asked, in that coldly polite tone he always used with her. He was, unsurprisingly, completely unreadable. He always seemed so blank. So soulless. Gracia wondered, not for the first time, what the hell Maes saw in him.

"Of course. Come in."

"Actually, I'd prefer to speak with you out here." He glanced past her into the house warily before returning his eyes to her face. "Privately."

She wondered at that a little, about why he thought that being outside on the porch would be more private than inside the protective walls of an empty house, but she decided not to question it. Maes had told her more than once that Roy Mustang could be a little odd sometimes.

"Alright then."

She knew he wanted her to come fully out onto the patio, but she stood firmly half behind the door. Her face ached where Maes had hit her, and she'd awoken this morning to find her eye swollen and bruised to a reddish purple. It was not at all an attractive look, and she honestly didn't feel like standing out in the cold, sick and disheveled, in her housecoat, with a shiner blossoming from her face for all the neighbors to gossip about. No thanks.

Mustang took the hint that she wasn't going to come outside and looked irritated for a beat, but then he smoothed over his expression again.

"Your husband has been acting strangely at work," he said finally, getting right to the point.

"I'm not surprised. He's been acting strangely at home."

He nodded knowingly. "I figured. Do you have any idea as to why?"

_Yes, it's because you've been working him like a slave, jackass. It's because he's under a lot of pressure, and you seem to be doing everything in you power to make it worse!_

She didn't say it aloud, but she wanted to.

"Haven't the faintest," she said instead. Her feelings, while not literally spoken, made themselves known in the tone of her voice. He bristled but then, once again, soothed himself back into coolness.

"He's ill," Mustang went on, forcing himself to sound peaceable. "And overwhelmed." He stopped and cleared his throat, "...And I admit that I _have_ contributed to his stress, though not intentionally..."

Gracia swallowed and nodded. Hers and Elysia's recent sicknesses certainly weren't helping matters either. As much as she wanted to put all the blame on Mustang, she knew that they were both at fault. A man can only take so much at a time.

"...But whatever's going on with him," he went on, "I think that there are other factors involved. At the office yesterday, he got so worked up and angry that I thought it was going to come to blows."

She nodded again, her eye suddenly throbbing as she thought about the injury. _That was an accident_, she thought to herself for the hundredth time, keeping that side of her face hidden behind the door.

"I just wanted to ask..." he paused before he could continue, suddenly awkward. He cleared his throat again. "...If everything is alright at home between you two."

She wanted to give him a curt, automatic, _Yes, of course_, but she knew that there was no point in lying. He already knew that everything wasn't alright between them, anyway. Maes had surely told Mustang everything that had happened yesterday, when he went to go stay at his apartment.

Gracia sighed and, after the briefest of hesitations, opened the door wider.

It took her less than a second for her to realize that, no, Maes _hadn't_ told his friend everything.

Mustang's entire body contorted with shock when he saw her bruised face. He stepped closer to her, his eyes huge.

"He _hit_ you?"

She was tempted to tell him that she'd gotten the black eye in a bar fight, like she had jokingly told Maes that she would, but she figured that Mustang would neither get nor appreciate the black humor.

"It was an accident," she said. "I startled him."

"Getting startled is an excuse to hit your wife?" he exclaimed, looking sick.

She rolled her eyes at him, already regretting opening the door. "It _was_ an accident. You think I'd be standing here, waiting for him to come back home if it wasn't? I'm not an idiot and Maes would never lay a hand on me! You're a fool if you think otherwise."

Mustang absorbed that, still looking more than a little unsettled by the thought of his friend abusing his wife. But then he shook himself and relaxed a little. _No_, she saw him realize_, that's right; Hughes would never, in a million years, intentionally lay a hand on his wife_.

"But I _do_ know there's something wrong with him..." she went on, patting Elysia's back as she started to fuss again. "He needs a vacation. Sick leave, at the very least."

Mustang nodded grimly, blatantly avoiding looking at her eye, as if it scared him a little. "That's exactly what I told him."

"And?"

He shrugged. "He didn't say much about it. He was pretty pissed the last time I spoke with him... He's just not himself."

"No... he's not," she agreed, her heart softening a little to see how deeply Mustang shared in her concern.

A silence passed between them, and a chill wind stirred the hems of their clothing. As if on some subconscious cue, they shivered in unison.

"Where is he now?" Mustang asked finally.

"...What?"

"You said you were waiting for him to come home. Where did he go?"

Gracia stared at him for a long time, not quite getting what he was asking. Then, as she felt the cold weight of anxiety drop ever heavier onto her chest, she said:

"He never showed up at your apartment, did he?"

"...Was he supposed to?"

She drew in a shaky breath, suddenly dizzy. "He... he said that he was dangerous and had to go away for a while... He ran out. He told me that he was going to stay with you for a few days... You really haven't seen him?"

Mustang's jaw tensed at her words. "Mrs. Hughes, I haven't seen him since I sent him home from work yesterday," he told her heavily.

Terror clutched Gracia's insides. "Well then where is he?" she demanded, knowing that he didn't know the answer, either, but needing to ask. "Where is my husband? He's so sick, Mustang, what if he wandered off somewhere?"

"I'll find him. He can't have gone far—"

"He had a fever, and if he stayed out all night..." she spoke over him, clutching Elysia tightly to her chest, trying to absorb any comfort she could from her. She felt sick. "I mean, my god, it was below freezing last night...!"

Mustang stepped closer to her and took her arm firmly, forcing her to stop talking and look at him.

"I'll _find_ him, Gracia."

Gracia swallowed the hard lump in her throat and tried to calm herself. She could not lose her head now. Not in front of her daughter. Not in front of Mustang.

"You sure as hell better," she whispered, unable to keep a desperate tremor from her voice.

Mustang nodded and let her go, trying to seem collected and stoic, but Gracia could see the uncertain fear in his eyes. He dropped his briefcase on the patio beside her feet then, without another word, he turned and _ran. _ Back toward the imposing sight of Central HQ, its silhouette a burning black shadow, backlit by the red, dying light of the evening sun.

* * *

It took two hours to track him down.

By the time he made it back to HQ, just about everyone had gone home for the night. His office was empty of all staff—even Hawkeye—and he cursed his luck. That's what he got for leaving early; it gave everyone else in the office the right to do just the same.

First, Roy called every hospital within a twenty-mile radius. He thought that if Maes was as sick as he seemed, then perhaps some good Samaritan had taken him in for medical treatment... but that was just wishful thinking. No Maes Hughes had been admitted to any nearby hospital.

Disappointed and still fighting the fear that was gnawing at the back of his heart like some kind of rodent, he made himself press forward. Next, he decided to check all of the hotels in the city. He called each one, his heart sinking every time they told him, "Sorry, there's no Maes Hughes staying with us."

But then, just when his fear was truly beginning to give way to panic, he found him. He almost laughed when the nasally-voiced woman at the hotel's front desk confirmed his hopes over the phone. Well, Roy had been right about one thing: Maes hadn't gone far.

The hotel he was staying at was six blocks from his house.

He thanked the woman and sped back out of the Headquarters building, pounding pavement the whole way there. Now that he knew that Maes had been safely in a hotel room all night instead of freezing to death in the streets—an image that Mrs. Hughes had vividly branded his mind with—a small sense of relief had filled him and he was starting to get just a little pissed off, his suspicions raised once again.

Maes had had some kind of argument with his wife. That was apparent by the dark bruise marring her gentle face. Then he had left her and had _lied_ about where he was going. He was even staying in a cheap hotel... No matter how ill he was, there was no excuse for this behavior; all the evidence pointed to infidelity, underlining Roy's dark predictions and filling him with a sense of betrayal and anger.

He and Gracia Hughes didn't always see eye-to-eye, but she didn't deserve this from her husband, no matter what his reasons were. Not to mention, Roy didn't exactly find running around in the cold, half-sick with worry to be a very pleasant way to spend his Friday evening.

The hotel wasn't hard to find. Room 107, right behind the front office, exactly where the woman on the phone had said it would be.

Roy pounded hard on the door, his fist making it rattle in its frame. "Maes!" he bellowed. "Open up!"

There was no answer for several beats, but then a long, low moan came from the room.

The worried irritation in Roy's chest intensified. "Come on, Maes! You have a few things to answer for, so open the goddamn door!"

Inside, there was only silence,

Roy pounded on the door again, so hard that his fist stung with each blow and dusty blue paint chips fell from the frame. "I'll break down this door if you don't get your ass over here and unlock it!" he seethed. "And you know I will!"

A sigh and the creak of bedsprings floated out through the open window. Roy turned his head and frowned, having not until that moment realized that it was open. Why the hell had Maes left it open? It was _freezing_ out here, and if he was sick...

Roy's musing was cut short by the sound of the door's bolt sliding from the lock with a slow, grating _shhh-clack_. The handle turned and the door creaked open to reveal the gaping darkness of the room beyond.

A face appeared from the shadows, flushed and gaunt with an oily sheen of sick perspiration glimmering on his brow and cheeks. For a split second, Roy almost didn't recognize him. His hair hung in his face, looking somehow much longer than it had been when he had seen him last. As he had in the office, Maes looked bigger than Roy was used to, his muscles huge and textured with blue veins. His abs were so defined that it looked almost unnatural, as if they had been chiseled from stone by someone with only a vague knowledge of human anatomy.

"Your wife is worried about you," Roy blurted finally, not knowing what else to say. The irritation in him was all but gone, fully replaced by the uncertainty and worry. These were not emotions that sat well with Roy Mustang and they twisted his stomach into uncomfortable, dangerous knots that screamed _something is wrong_ over and over in the back of his mind.

Maes leaned against the door heavily, as if he doubted his ability to keep his feet without the support. He was naked from the waist up and sweat was beading on just about every inch of his skin. Even standing where he was on the doorstep, Roy could feel the heat of his fever on his ungloved hands.

"...What?" Maes asked, his voice a wet-sounding rasp. He swayed a little, then steadied himself on the door with a quiet moan.

Roy was speechless for a beat, still startled by his disheveled appearance.

"I said your wife is worried."

Maes' watery eyes narrowed to slits. "And you would know... wouldn't you?"

Roy licked his lips, knowing exactly what he was insinuating. "Maes, there is nothing going on between me and your wife. Nothing, okay? What would even make you think that?"

Maes just stared at him. He tilted his head to the side and the glow from the streetlight hit his eyes in the most peculiar way, making them flash a brilliant yellow-green for just a moment, like the eye-shine of a feral cat.

_Something is wrong, something is wrong, something is wrong..._

"And what about you?" Roy demanded boldly, hoping that his forced air of confidence was enough to hide his growing anxiety.

He stepped forward and pushed himself past Maes into the room. They would deal with this now, man-to-man, no matter how damn sick Maes was. It had gone far enough. Maes backed away as he stepped in and pressed himself against the wall in a half-crouch, as if he was bracing himself for a fight. His eyes flashed green flames in the dim light again and... if Roy didn't know any better... he would have sworn that he was growling, very softly.

"I'm only going to ask you this once," he announced, desperately trying to ignore the feeling of dark foreboding that was swiftly overtaking him. "And whatever your answer is... I'll believe you."

He took a breath.

"Are you cheating on Gracia? Because if you are, then... Well, I have a problem with that."

There was a long pause from Maes as he continued to stare at Roy, but slowly the malice in his eyes faded and disappeared, transforming into a confused kind of horror. He placed his hand over his bare stomach, as if he felt like he was going to vomit.

"...Does she _think_ that?"

"No. I think that."

"_No!_ No, I would _never_ betray her!" He cringed and doubled over a little, turning away. "W-where the hell do _you_ get off accusing _me_ of infidelity?"

"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" Roy asked, watching him stumble toward the small, dirty-looking bed in the corner.

Maes leaned against the ancient mattress, one hand clutching the rumpled sheets, the other still holding his stomach. A low, near-animal sound shuddered from his throat and he sank to his knees with a curse.

"...Maes?"

The man cried out and curled in on himself, but didn't offer any further reply. He just knelt there, shaking against the ugly hotel duvet-cover.

Cautiously, Roy moved closer. He lowered himself onto the bed near him and put a tentative hand on his shoulder. God, his skin was so hot... He wasn't shivering like he had a fever though, Roy realized suddenly. He didn't look cold at all. He looked over-heated, as if he'd been running for miles and had exerted himself. His shoulder was flushed and absolutely soaked with hot sweat, and Roy could feel how tightly flexed his deltoid was beneath his skin.

Maes jerked out from under his friend's gentle touch, and this time Roy was _sure_ that he was growling.

Out of nowhere, he pounced. Roy hit the floor hard, breath punched from his lungs as Maes knocked him from the bed and pinned him to the scratchy industrial carpeting. There was murder in his friend's eyes, and a terrifying, beastly kind of hunger that no man should ever see in the eyes of a fellow human.

Surprised into instinctive reflex, Roy threw him off and kicked him hard in the chest with the flat of his boot, sending him back against the nightstand. The lamp on the small wooden table wobbled and fell, smashing itself on the floor.

Whether it was the sound, the destruction, or the blow that snapped him out of it, Roy could never be sure, but in that moment Maes blinked and took a deep breath, looking for all the world as if he'd just awoken from a nightmare.

Both men sat on the floor, panting, adrenaline pumping through them as they regarded each other.

"Roy..." Maes said very quietly—so, _so_ quietly—looking away. "Something's wrong."

He sounded so scared.

Roy swallowed. He hesitated only a moment, driven by the lost tone in his beloved friend's voice, then crawled across the few feet that separated them on the stained floor of the hotel room. Once again, he dared to put a consoling hand on him, squeezing him reassuringly, as one brother would another.

"I know," he rasped back, scared and honestly not knowing what he should do. "I know, Maes. Maybe I should take you home..."

For several uncomfortable seconds, Maes said nothing. He just sat there silently, one leg drawn up to his chest. But then he stiffened, every muscle in his body tensing, bulging beneath his skin. His shoulders heaved and he gagged hard, turning his head away from Roy.

Nothing came up other than a single, dark droplet across his lower lip. In the dimness of the room, Roy couldn't tell whether or not it was blood.

Quickly, his heart straining to contain his alarm, Roy stood and dragged Maes to his feet. Maes didn't protest, but he didn't help much either, as Roy supported him and guided him out of the room and onto the street.

He would call the doctor when he got there. And then everything would be fine. Maes was a fighter. He'd gotten knocked down by whatever this sickness was, but he would get up again. Roy swore then and there, as the two of them stumbled beneath the streetlights—one of them frantically trying to hurry, the other too sick to care—that he would never overwork Maes again. He would give him a month's vacation—hell, _six _months if he asked for it—and he would never complain about his late-night phone calls, or refuse to look at pictures of his daughter ever again...

If he would just make it through this.

Horrifying diseases began listing themselves in Roy's head. It had to be something terrible. No normal sickness would do this to a strong, otherwise-healthy man. Ebola, malaria, botulism... None of them really fit Maes' symptoms, but that didn't stop the gruesome images of each sickness' fatal conclusion from overtaking his imagination.

He saw Maes convulsing on a hospital bed, saliva foaming at his lips, his eyes fogged over and rolled to the back of his head...

He saw him covered in sores, stinking like death, his mind leaving him long before his body finally shut down, raving mad in the heat of his fever...

He saw him in a pulpy puddle of red, blood oozing from every part of him, his flesh and organs turning to mush within him and he gasped and gurgled through the agony...

Maes moaned and pulled away from Roy suddenly, staggering over to a lamppost and doubling over. He retched painfully hard and a few drops of black fluid fell upon the concrete like ink-splatters.

Shakily, Roy went over to him and led him back to the sidewalk, quietly assuring him that he was almost home and that he was going to be fine... even as he tried in vain to force out those terrible scenarios from his mind.

They trudged on.

Six blocks had never seemed so great a distance.

* * *

((A/N: School/Student Teaching is killing me in a fantastically good way, but it makes it hard to work on fics. I apologize for my tardiness on this chapter, but it's likely to continue. The next chapter might come out a little faster though, as some of my favorite scenes are coming up X3 . I can only pray that when I actually get around to writing it down, it'll be as awesome as it is in my brain, otherwise this story is gonna be a big ol' disappointment for readers and author alike. Sigh.))


	6. Sweat and Blood

A hard, hurried pounding sounded from the front door.

Gracia pulled back the curtain shrouding the living room window to look out onto the patio. Mustang was leaning forward, one arm supporting another man as he attacked the door with his fist. The other man was shirtless and limp, his skin a pale splash against the backdrop of night.

She knew who he was—knew that there was no other person that Mustang could possibly be dragging to her house on this frigid evening—but some great part of her did not want to accept that that shirtless, scarcely recognizable person was her husband. No, not him. No one she loved should ever look so sick.

Gracia barely had time to open the door all the way before Mustang came plowing through it, hauling Maes inside.

"Help me get him to bed," Mustang panted, buckling a little under Maes' weight as he brought him over the threshold, half-carrying him. Maes cast his bloodshot eyes around the room mildly, looking confused until Gracia rushed to his side and draped his arm across her back, helping Mustang support him.

"Wait..." Maes rasped, in a voice that was so changed by sickness that Gracia would not have known it was her husband's if she hadn't heard it from his very lips. He tried to pull away from her, wrenching his arm from her solid grasp. "No..."

"Shh, honey it's okay. You're home," she tried to soothe him, holding him more tightly against her.

But he kept struggling, moaning for them to let him go. His attempts to free himself from their grasps, however, were too weak to do much good. He was too sick to throw them off. He was just too sick.

Gracia looked over at Mustang and her queasy stomach dropped ever lower. Fear was not an expression she had ever expected to see on the cold lieutenant colonel's face. Even if this man was capable of feeling the dark emotion of fear—which she had seriously doubted until this moment, cool as he typically was around her—she never thought that he'd actually show it. His jaw was clenched so tight that it was pushing the veins in his temples flush against the surface of his skin, and she could see how desperately he clutched his friend to his side...

But what got to her—what _really_ frightened her—was how he was returning her gaze, reflecting back her own terrified uncertainty. _What do we do?_ their eyes asked each other silently.

Together, Gracia and Mustang wrestled Maes into the bedroom and forced him to lie down. Mustang kept a hand on his shoulder, pinning him to the bed.

"N-no..." Maes begged deliriously, tossing his head back against the sheets. "No... I can't be here... I h-have to leave... I—"

He cut off with a sharp, choking sound that was almost a scream and rolled over onto his side, clutching fistfuls of the bedding to his chest. The engorged muscles in his sweat-slicked back tensed and shuddered.

"What's wrong with him...?" Gracia breathed in horror.

Mustang shook his head. "I don't know... I don't know. But whatever it is, it's getting worse fast. He wasn't this bad just fifteen minutes ago."

"We should take him to the hospital..."

Maes shrieked again, curling in on himself and panting like a dying hound. Both Mustang and Gracia immediately hovered over him, touching him, running their hands down his side soothingly, not knowing how else to comfort him in his terror and pain.

After a moment he quieted a little, mumbling to himself, and Mustang straightened. "...I'm afraid to move him again," he confessed, his eyes still on Maes as he wiped his mouth in agitation. But then he looked up at her and met her gaze again with those intense, lost eyes of his and she almost had to look away. "Does your family physician make house-calls?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, of course... I'll call him."

She turned to go, but hesitated in the doorway. She didn't want to leave the room to make the call, didn't want to leave Maes.

"I'll take care of him, Gracia," Mustang promised tightly. "Just hurry."

Gracia swallowed and ran back out into the living room to call Dr. Trudeau. He'd know what to do.

The doctor answered after the third ring. Twice he had to tell her to calm down and speak more slowly before she was able to communicate to him how sick her husband was and how desperately she needed the doctor to take up his medical bag and come over. He agreed quickly and calmly, telling her to expect him in about half an hour, and hung up.

She held the phone to her breast for a moment, her hands shaking. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Panic was not going to help anything. She just needed to stay calm until the doctor got here, and then everything would be alright. He would cure Maes of his sickness with vials and elixirs from his physician's kit. He would break his fever and soothe his frantic, unquiet mind. He just needed medicine and rest. Then he'd be fine. Just fine.

She swallowed, trying to rid herself of that painful, horrible fullness in her throat, and went back into the bedroom.

* * *

Roy looked up as Gracia came back into the room. She stood in the doorway for a beat, just looking at him. He was sitting on the bed close beside Maes, one hand running up and down his arm, feeling his swollen muscles twitching under his skin. The woman looked at her husband with such a heartbreaking expression on her face, as if he were already dead.

But he wasn't dead, Roy reminded himself forcefully. Nor would he die. No, he wouldn't die. He couldn't.

"The doctor is on his way," she said, speaking to both of them even though it was clear that Maes wasn't capable of listening at the moment.

"Good," Roy nodded nervously. "I guess we should just try to keep him comfortable until then."

She bit her lip. Her pale blue eyes were downcast, her lashes nearly brushing against her cheeks. In that moment, Roy suddenly felt a great camaraderie with her. In that moment, they were filled with exactly the same feeling, with the exact same intensity. They shared in this frantic misery and they were equally helpless.

Fear can make a person do strange things, such as feel a deep, abrupt kinship with someone you didn't even particularly _like_ yesterday. Fear builds alliances more quickly and strongly than calm ever could.

Without speaking, Gracia walked over to the small bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. He heard her rummaging around in a cabinet, and then the sound of running water.

Maes moaned and turned back over, his bleary eyes staring up at the ceiling, the light catching in that poison-green film on his irises again, making them glow. The whites of his eyes had darkened to a sickly yellow-grey. His chest was heaving as if he couldn't breathe right. Saliva foamed at the corners of his mouth.

Maybe it was the foaming saliva that made him think of it, but Roy was suddenly reminded of a dog—a rabid dog—and his stomach clenched.

"...Do you think that maybe the bite got infected?" Roy asked quietly, looking down at his friend's thigh and the injury hidden beneath his pant leg. "Could that be causing this...?"

She reappeared from the shadows of the darkened bathroom, a damp washcloth in hand. "What bite?" she asked him, watching as he leaned over and started to undo Maes' belt buckle.

He unbuttoned Maes' pants and slid them off of him. Maes didn't fight him, but that long, low growl that Roy had heard earlier floated into his ears again. Roy tried to ignore him and pulled his pants off of him, tossing them aside and revealing the bandage that peeked out from the hem of his grey boxers. The bandage was dirty, soaked though with sweat and orangish, anemic-looking blood.

Roy swore under his breath, not liking that at all.

Gracia laid the cool cloth on Maes' brow then peered over Roy's shoulder as he untied the bandage and revealed the wound. The punctures were inflamed and dark red, almost purple around the edges. The wound didn't look particularly good, but... Roy tilted his head to the side—there was no way that it was infected enough to make Maes this sick. The bite didn't look _that_ bad...

"What the hell is that?" Gracia gasped when she saw it. "When did this happen?"

"A couple days ago. Just before he got sick..." Roy stopped and looked at her in surprise. "He didn't tell you about it? About the dog?"

She shook her head.

He looked back down at the wound, gently chewing on the inside of his lip. "If he lied to you about the bite, he probably lied to me about going to the clinic to get it looked at... Goddamnit, Maes."

Maes' only reply was another, slightly more threatening growl.

Gently, Roy wiped a clean edge of the bandage across the wound, trying to clear away some of the old blood to get a better look at it, but before he could make much headway he was suddenly thrown back against the wall, the back of his neck striking against the stately wooden headboard on the bed.

With an incredible strength that it didn't seem like he could have possibly possessed when Roy had dragged him down the streets of Central mere minutes ago, Maes pinned him hard against the wall, crushing their bodies together. His nails dug painfully into Roy's shoulder and collarbone, cutting into his flesh even through his clothing. And then in an instant, even before he could even voice his surprise, Maes' teeth were pressed hard against his neck.

Roy froze. He could feel Maes' heart against his chest, how fast it was beating. Maes' whole body trembled and twitched in a series of little jerks, and each tiny movement dug his surprisingly sharp teeth harder against Roy's throat. He could feel Maes' canines vibrate with the resonance of his low, frightening growl.

He didn't dare to try pushing him off. He scarcely dared to breathe.

Gracia stood beside the bed, her hand over her mouth in horror. She, like Roy, was absolutely immobilized, totally unsure of how to react to what was happening. But then, tentatively, she took a step forward.

"...Love...?" she called him softly, reaching out to rest her fingers comfortingly on his back.

In response to her closeness, Maes' jaw clenched harder on Roy's neck. He snarled and Gracia jumped back again. The pain was enough to make Roy's eyes water, and he gasped to feel Maes' teeth dig in deeper, only to discover that he could scarcely draw a breath at all.

Maes was clamping down on his windpipe, and if the situation kept going in this direction he'd cut off Roy's airflow entirely. He had to do something. He knew in that moment that Maes would kill him if he didn't. It was a horrifying thing to realize, that his friend was so sick that he would murder him without remorse.

"Maes."

He spoke his friend's name very softly, and it came from his mouth in a strangled little cough. He raised his hand and slowly... so, so slowly... rested it on the back of Maes' head.

"It's okay, Maes," he gasped, each word agony. "We're t-trying to help you..."

Maes didn't move or release his hold, but the growling died away to a low, sporadic rumble. Encouraged by this, Roy stroked Maes' long, tangled hair and continued talking to him.

"The doctor is on his way. Something is... h-hah... wr-rong with you, but you'll be fine. You're fine."

For another beat nothing happened, then Roy felt the pressure on his throat lessen. Maes shuddered and a dark, helpless sob broke from him. He buried his face against the side of Roy's neck and wrapped his arms around him. Roy remained perfectly still, not wanting to do anything that might upset him again. His throat ached and the flesh of his neck stung as he took several deep breaths and just held his friend, one hand still tangled in his hair.

"I'm sorry... S-sorry, Roy...." Maes whimpered, his lips brushing against Roy's neck, his words slurring. "I... d-don't... I don't want to hurt you..."

"That's good, because I don't want you to hurt me, either..." Roy tried to joke weakly. "At least we have an accord on that."

Maes apparently didn't think it was funny. Another series of quiet, lamenting sounds that were not quite sobs shook him and he pushed himself off of Roy, crawling back toward the foot of the bed.

"You have to go... run... Both of you..." he rasped, curling up into ball again, his too-broad shoulders heaving. "Please, just get away from me—"

Some kind of spasm interrupted him, tightening his shoulders and the muscles in his bare thighs. He screamed, arms crossed over his chest, teeth bared and eyes shut tight.

Roy swallowed. "Don't be ridiculous, Maes. We can't just--"

Maes rolled onto his back, practically writhing in agony, his gruesomely flexed chest fluttering as he panted. "GO!" he shrieked.

"We're not going anywhere!" Gracia told him, her voice so tight with fear and grief that Roy wondered how far away she was from bursting into tears.

Maes moaned, but didn't say anything else. He just lay there on his back, his head leaning off the foot of the bed, his sweat-oiled body tensed and twitching. The wounds on his leg had started bleeding again, staining the leg of his boxers with sickly orange-red.

"Could that be causing this?" Gracia asked quietly, her eyes also drawn to the wound. "Maybe... maybe something that the dog had and passed on to him?"

"You're not... you're not thinking rabies are you?" Roy asked slowly, his eyes darting back to the frothy spittle in the corner of Maes' mouth that he'd noticed earlier. Rabies fit the symptoms. The saliva, the aggression, his hot skin... But no, it couldn't be that. If the symptoms are showing, rabies is always fatal. Always. And that just couldn't happen.

"I don't know..." Gracia said uncertainly, "Shouldn't it take longer than this to start affecting him, if it is rabies? How long does it take for rabies to show symptoms...? Doesn't it take _months_, usually?"

"What do I look like, a vet?" He rubbed his face in frustration. "I really have no idea."

They both went quiet again, just watching Maes, just listening to him whimper and struggle to breathe.

* * *

"Are you bleeding?"

Mustang looked up at Gracia blankly, pulled from his quiet scrutinization of Maes' suffering form. They had been sitting quietly for several minutes, not knowing what else to do.

"Your neck," she explained, "Where he bit you."

He blinked and raised his hand to his throat, where Maes' teeth had dug into his skin. He winced as if indentions burned when he touched them. The whole area was red and tender-looking and would almost certainly bruise. He pulled his fingertips away and looked at them.

"No, I'm not bleeding."

She nodded, holding herself. "Good. Because if whatever this is was passed to him from that dog bite, he could have passed it on to you."

Mustang nodded back but then stopped, a strange expression coming over his face. "...Wait, what did you say?"

"...That he could have infected you with whatever he has if he'd broken skin... But he didn't, right?"

Mustang stared at her. She could practically see the wheels in his head turning, the cogs falling into place. Whatever he was thinking, she could tell that it wasn't anything good.

"Mrs. Hughes..." he asked finally. "Where did you put my briefcase?"

"The... the closet."

"Get it."

Warily, Gracia went to the closet across from the foot of the bed. Maes' eyes opened slightly, watching her upside-down with his head hanging off the bed's plush edge. He snarled at her quietly.

There was something wrong with his face, and his eyes were too bright.

She tried to ignore him and the wave of fearful nausea that hit her and opened the big, walk-in closet. The briefcase was right where she'd left it. She picked it up.

Mustang came over and took it from her, quickly kneeling down on the floor and flipping up the locks.

"What's going on?" she asked him, his sudden nervous energy becoming contagious. "Do you know what's wrong with him?"

"I hope not," he said, pulling out a thick file and flipping through it. "I hope that I'm completely wrong..." His eyes scanned the pages in front of him. "Symptoms... symptoms... Here."

He held a page up and looked at it. "..._Those infected will be easily identifiable by obvious lupine (wolf) qualities_," he read to himself. "_During and after the initial transformation... violent and unpredictable... primal instincts imprinted... animal DNA..._" He flipped the page. "_Other symptoms include: foaming at the mouth, engorged and spasming muscles... confusion, dementia, fever..._ Fuck, Gracia. This is it."

She crouched down beside him. "What is? What is this?"

"It's—"

Maes' growling increased in volume again and they looked up at him. He was still watching them from his upside-down vantage point on the bed. His teeth were bared; they looked too long and too sharp to be human. Saliva bubbled from the corner of this mouth and flowed down across his cheek like a pale, iridescent oil stain. His eyes were full of something unspeakable, something that let Gracia know that her husband was no longer in control of this body in front of her.

He raised himself up off the bed, slowly turning over onto his hands and knees. His long hair spilled over his shoulder in a wave of black, veiling half of his face and sticking to the sweat of his brow. His hands—which Gracia could now see were tipped with thick, blackened, claw-like nails—dug in to the edge of the bedding as he leaned forward, tensing himself.

"...It's a sure sign that we should probably run," Mustang finished breathlessly.

The creature launched itself from the bed and hit the ground running, loping on all fours like an animal. Mustang grabbed Gracia from around the waist before she could even think of running and pulled her to her feet. He grabbed the knob on the closet door and threw Gracia inside before coming in after her and yanking the door shut behind him. Maes hit the door with every ounce of his strength, barreling into it so hard that the frame cracked and sent splinters of wood raining down upon them.

Mustang bellowed a curse, backing away from the door a little, but keeping both hands on the knob, keeping the door pulled closed. Gracia could barely see him. The light seeping in from under the door was dim, but it touched him just enough for her to see the terror and—shockingly—_anger_ that was contorting his face.

Another loud crash split Gracia's eardrums as Maes' body hit the door again. The animal screamed in frustration, the heart-gripping noise sounding like the mutated combination of an injured lion's roar and the piercing shriek of a bird of prey. It chilled Gracia to her very core.

"What the hell is going on?" she demanded, getting to her feet, hugging her robe closed around her.

"Those fucking _bastards_!" Mustang hissed over the sound of Maes trying to claw through the door. "This is inhumane. This goes far beyond the limits of warfare...! They said they were only testing, the file said nothing about them _succeeding_!"

He slammed his fist against the door, echoing Maes. "They didn't lose the virus, they lost a goddamn _test subject_!"

"Mustang what are you talking about? What's happening to my husband?"

"Your husband, Mrs. Hughes, has been infected by an agent of biological warfare. I'm almost sure of it. The dog that bit him wasn't really a dog."

"But what does that _mean_?"

He turned and looked at her, the pale light outlining the side of his face, making him look like a marble statue. His eyes flashed.

"It means that Major Hughes is going to kill us. And possibly eat us."

He said it in such an irritated, matter-of-fact way that she almost laughed at him. Her stomach turned.

"...What do we do? Is there a cure for this? A... a vaccine?" she asked instead.

Mustang shook his head and looked back toward the door. He didn't know.

The banging had stopped, but they could hear Maes just beyond the door, sniffing them out. Smelling their fear.

Gracia bit her lip, then turned and parted the clothes hanging along the wall. She couldn't see the safe, but she knew where it was. She felt along its iron-cold surface, fumbling for the dial. She found it. With her fingertip, she felt for the numbers carved into the little wheel. Seven. She turned it. Twenty-one. She turned it. Eight. Twelve. Twenty-five.

There was a soft click and she turned he handle. It popped open without contest.

From outside the closet there came another crash. It came from further away, though. Perhaps out in the hallway.

"He's moved away from the door," Mustang said. "I'm going to go out... I'll try to trap him somewhere. We can't let him get outside to kill or infect anyone..."

"Are you armed?"

Mustang swallowed. "No, I don't even have my gloves, let alone a gun."

Gracia grabbed something from the safe and handed it to him. "Now you do. It's loaded."

Mustang took the revolver. "Good. I'll try to tag him in the arm or the leg... Hopefully he's still weak enough to go down easy." He paused for a beat. "I thought Hughes didn't like guns."

"He doesn't, particularly," she answered, pulling a rifle from the safe.

"Hm," he intoned, swinging out the cylinder on the revolver and checking the chambers for bullets, even though she'd already told him it was loaded. He clicked it back into place. "Alright. You stay here."

"Now wait a minute..."

"It's for your own good. And mine. I can't be worried about protecting you right now."

"You don't have to protect me, I can take care of myse—"

"We don't have time to argue the point, ma'am," he snapped, "Just trust me on this one."

"Like hell! That's my _husband_ out there!"

"And he's my _brother in arms_, my _subordinate_, my _best friend_, and I won't have you accidentally killing him because you don't know how to handle a gun!"

"I can handle a gun," she shouted back, indignant, "I—"

"Or what if _he_ kills _you_? You think he'd be able to live with that if—or when—we get him back to normal? What if—"

"Shut up," Gracia said suddenly.

"Don't you tell me to—"

"Shh! Did you hear that?"

He stopped, finally sensing her urgency. They both went silent and listened. Gracia was sure that she'd heard something. It wasn't a roar or a growl, or any of the other barbaric sounds that Maes had been making... It was...

From outside the bedroom, from where they had heard Maes crashing down the hallway, she heard a sound that made her insides go cold. It was a plaintive, terrified-sounding wail.

Mustang's eyes went wide. "The baby."

"Elysia!" Gracia cried, grabbing the knob and flinging the door open. She ran out, rifle in hand, but Mustang caught her by the wrist and threw her back into the closet. She stumbled into the back wall and fell to her knees. She screamed in rage and scrambled to her feet, but Mustang slammed the door closed before she could reach it.

She heard something break, then the sound of dragging wood. She turned the knob and pushed with all her weight but the door didn't budge. Mustang had wedged something against it.

"NO!" she shrieked, pounding her fists against the door uselessly. "You son of a bitch! You bastard!"

Gracia got no reply from Mustang, other than the sound of his boots striking against the wooden floor as he ran from the room and down the hallway.

Toward Maes.

Toward where Gracia could hear her daughter screaming.


	7. Run and Scream

_((A/N: Yes, I know this has been a very long time coming and I apologize. Thank Miskcat for recently posting a ridiculously awesome fanfic and unintentionally shaming me into finishing this chapter (seriously, go check out her story Flame and Shadow. Such yummy Roy angst!). Hopefully I'll continue being re-inspired for this story and actually finish it.))_

* * *

Roy slammed the closet door shut, cutting off Gracia's frantic cry. He spun, looking around the room. After a split second he decided on the heavy-looking trunk at the foot of the bed. With a great heave that made something in the small of his back twinge as if someone had shoved a needle into his spine, he dragged the trunk over to the closet door, knocking a picture frame off of the wall in the process. He turned the wooden chest up on one end and wedged it under the closet's knob just before he heard the hysterical woman beyond throw her body against the door.

"NO!" he heard her scream. She rattled the door with her fists and swore at him, but he was already running from the room, trying to block out _her_ screaming and focus on the screaming coming from down the hallway.

He stalked down the hallway—swiftly, but quietly—holding the gun in his hands low and ready, his finger prepared to squeeze the trigger at the slightest provocation. It was heavier and older than his own gun, but it would do. He wished fervently that he had his gloves, but an unfamiliar gun that was practically an antique was better than nothing at all, he supposed.

He stopped outside of the nursery, Elysia's cries reverberating in his eardrums and giving a harsh melody to the heavy percussion of his roaring heartbeat. It was a terrible, haunting sound. Now, Roy didn't really count himself as the paternal type, so he couldn't really say that he spent a lot of time around infants... but one thing he could say was that he'd never heard a baby cry like this before. It wasn't that typical bawl of, "I'm hungry" or "I'm tired." This was something else entirely. This was different. This was a cry of pure, primal terror and it made Roy's insides squirm.

Maybe it was instinct, he thought to himself a little giddily. Perhaps this different pitch of crying, this wail of terror, was purposefully meant to make a grown adult squirm like this. It was an evolutionary thing, to drive a sane human being to near madness just by hearing this particular note of misery. The typical baby's cry was easily blocked out, but this sound was more urgent and deeply, deeply disturbing on a level that Roy didn't understand. All he could think about was making this sound stop. Whatever was causing this horrific noise, some half-suppressed, animal savagery demanded that he find it and put an end to it.

A low snarl came from the same direction of the screaming and Roy's stomach clenched.

He pressed his back against the wall and slid toward the open door. He took a breath and peeked into the room, taking in the entire nursery with one quick and calculated glance before retreating back.

Okay.

Maes was in the center of the room, hovering over the overturned bassinet. Roy couldn't see the baby, but there was movement in the pile of blankets spilling from the cradle and the squalling was coming from that direction, so he felt it was safe to assume that she was buried somewhere underneath. There was a window near the back left corner of the room, but that escape route was closed. There was a small bureau against the wall by the door... and a lamp that he could grab and throw in a pinch...

The beast within the room snarled again and Elysia's wailing increased to a veritable screech. The sound forced Roy forward, jolting him into action. He jerked forward into the doorway and leveled the gun at Maes. The creature twitched and looked up at him from his half-crouch over the powder-pink wad of blankets and the child wrapped therein.

Maes' eyes flashed in the dim lamplight coming in through the window, two bright points of green in the dimness of the room. In the frail light, Roy couldn't even recognize him as human anymore. The change was coming on him rapidly now. His face had elongated into an almost lupine muzzle, the structure of his skull stretched into inhumanity. His back was hunched, his spine curved as if he was meant to be standing on all fours. He looked suddenly, impossibly huge, his muscles straining under the light dusting of grey-black fur that had grown over his skin and trailed in long tresses down to the center of his back in a tapering ridge. His hair was ragged and tumbled greasily over his face and shoulders, making him look like a monster from a fairy tale.

Gentle Maes Hughes was becoming the Boogieman. Or, more appropriately, the Big Bad Wolf. Roy grinned to himself in the darkness, but didn't think that comparison was at all funny.

Maes opened his jaws and bared his teeth at Roy, iridescent strings of saliva dripping from his mouth and clinging to his stringy hair in spider web-like strands. He growled, lowering his head, his muscles tensing as if preparing himself to pounce.

"Easy, Maes..." Roy said quietly, taking a slow step toward him, aiming the gun at his friend's massive thigh. If he struck, Roy would shoot him in the leg. That would slow him down without killing him... But if it didn't slow him down _enough_...

Roy swallowed, allowing himself to realize that there was a good chance that he was going to have to kill his friend. That blow settled on him uneasily, but there was no way that he could allow Maes to leave this house, not when he could infect other people with this hellish virus. This could not spread any further than it already had. Roy just could not allow that.

Maes balked at the sound of Roy's voice. He crouched down even further, his shaggy head held low to the floor, those haunting eyes creating vague light-trails in the darkness as he rocked slowly, snake-like, from side to side. But then the low growl transformed into a pained screech and Maes hunkered backward, one clawed hand encircling his abdomen in obvious agony, the other hand digging into the carpeted floor.

He wasn't done changing yet, Roy realized with a burst of hope. Now was his chance, while Maes was distracted. He braced himself, mentally crossed his fingers, then darted forward into the room as fast as he could force his legs. He grabbed the pile of blankets, felt Elysia's warm little body amongst the plush folds, turned back, and ran for his life back out of the room.

Maes howled in fury, and a split second later Roy could hear him hurtling down the hallway behind him. Roy didn't dare to look back, putting every ounce of his concentration into making it out of the house. He practically slammed into the front door in his haste, then had to rearrange the gun and Elysia so that he could get a free hand to turn the doorknob. He flung the door open and stumbled out into the frigid night air, slamming the door shut behind him as Maes barreled into it. Roy jumped off of the porch and onto the darkened lawn, breathing hard as he turned back to the wolf at the door.

Maes bellowed his frustration at the barrier, pounding and scratching on it, but luckily he didn't seem to know how to get it open in his current state. He flung himself back toward the living room window to leer at Roy through the glass of the wide, half-curtained window, positively bristling with animal rage.

_Good. Okay. Good,_ Roy thought to himself, his thoughts racing. At least Maes was contained, right? At least he wasn't running free in the streets to maim and murder and spread his terrible disease to the unwary populous out at this hour… Luckily it was freezing out and most people were home from work already, so there weren't likely to be many pedestrians. A small mercy.

Maes snarled, his hot breath fogging the window in front of him, partially obscuring his mutated face and Roy instinctively took another step backward, hugging the screaming baby close. The creature raised both of his clawed hands to press them against the glass, leaning against it, leering hungrily. He parted his lips in a snarling grimace and licked his teeth in an undeniably threatening way that chilled Roy down to his bones.

He looked away and tried to ignore him, tried to think of what to do from here, but his heart was still caught up in a terrified race, and his knees felt just about ready to buckle, and the bawling child that he was clutching to his chest was not helping him concentrate in the _slightest_.

He should call the scientists, shouldn't he? Those assholes who were the cause of this terrible sight before him? They would know what to do. They could cure him. There had to be some kind of serum or vaccine or—_hell_—a voodoo trance that would make everything right again. After what he'd just seen, Roy didn't think he could discount any options at this point, no matter how far-fetched. He could go to a neighbor and use their phone... oh, but fuck, he didn't have the number. It was in his briefcase, back inside the house...

A sharp, brittle, creaking sound pulled Roy's attention back to the window. He almost didn't hear it over the ceaseless sound of Elysia's terror. When he looked up, the Maes-thing was still looking back at him, his teeth still bared in that awful grimace that was almost a demonic smile. The creature leaned forward against the window again and Roy could see pale, tiny little cracks beginning to spider outward from the palms of his massive clawed hands, widening as Maes leaned his weight against it. One hand pulled back from the fracturing glass and formed a fist.

Roy swore and turned without waiting for the fist to fall, knowing that he didn't even have time to raise his gun with the way that Elysia was encumbering his arms. He ran like a madman, even as he heard the glass shatter behind him, and the crunching, scraping sound of Maes exiting the house through the devastated window. Heart and head both screaming, he pounded down the slush-covered street as quickly as he was able, not daring to look behind him or to slow down long enough to shoot. Elysia wailed ever louder, her cry mingling with the sound of Roy's panicked footfalls and the approaching lope of the thing behind them.

As mutated and in pain as this Maes-thing was, Roy could tell by the nearing sound of its panting—so close he swore he could feel its breath on the back of his neck—it was becoming increasingly clear that he couldn't outrun it.

Terror moving him to action, he turned a sharp corner down an alley between two apartment buildings and ducked behind a dumpster. He crouched down in the cold muck, burying Elysia's face against his chest, desperately trying to muffle her wailing. He had no idea how to make a frightened baby stop crying—other than hissing "_Shut up, shut up, shut up_!" under his breath, of course—and he didn't exactly have time to figure it out at the moment.

He gripped the gun in one hand, his finger firmly on the trigger. It had been his hope to avoid shooting the beast, his loyal friend, but he was quickly running out of options.

Roy's vision was obscured by the bulk of the dumpster, but he could hear it when the creature rounded the corner. He was no longer galloping behind, but stalking; its prey was out of sight and it crept into the alley slowly, like a cancer, like a soft disease that kills almost before it is seen. Roy could hear the sound of its terrifying breath, the sound of it tracking his scent. There was no escape, and Roy's entrails froze as he saw the white cloud of the thing's breath, preceding the long muzzle and mouth full of teeth coming around the edge of the dumpster.

Roy crushed Elysia hard to his chest and leapt from his hiding place, extending his firing arm and squeezing off a round. The roar of the gunfire bounced off the walls of the narrow alleyway, echoing back into a cacophony of violence. The Maes-thing shrieked as the bullet bit into its upper arm and staggered backward. Taking advantage of its agonized distraction, Roy bolted past him and back into the slush-marred street. He ran as if the Devil himself were on his tail, without real direction, just trying to find any place even remotely safe.

The foggy, grey-blue streets streaked by in a blur of cold fear as he sped past, all the while trying to think of what to do next. There were houses around him, most of them dark or only dimly lit. He didn't have time to stop and pound on the doors he passed, let alone explain to the occupants that he needed a safe haven from the giant, infectious monster that happened to be chasing him.

Roy thought of his neck again, where Maes had bitten him. Infectious monster, indeed. The skin of his throat hadn't broken, though, so perhaps he hadn't been infected. But, he rationed as he ran, turning another corner, there was no way he could ask a family to open their doors for him for fear of Maes forcing himself in as well and either infecting or mauling the entire household. Roy couldn't decide which scenario would be more horrifying.

Lost in his lurching, unpleasant thoughts, he abruptly slipped and stumbled on the icy street as he ran, but steadied himself before he could fall. He caught a glimpse of the creature right behind him, bleeding from the shoulder and slowing down, but still too damn close for any kind of comfort. Feeling the edges of exhaustion in his over-worked lungs and legs, Roy forced himself into another burst of speed.

He wasn't going to be able to keep this up for much longer. Turning another corner he stumbled again, ramming his shoulder into the rough brick wall beside him and nearly dropping the baby. Her ceaseless wail was really starting to get under his skin now and was only intensifying his adrenaline-fueled terror. He raced past another dumpster and—a little wildly, perhaps—considered dumping her into it, for her own protection. And for his. It might be better for both of them if he could ditch her somewhere and come back for her later. He could very much use the extra free hand, and she would probably be safer in hiding than in the arms of a man running for his life who, incidentally, had never even _held_ a baby before now. Plus, Roy could certainly say that he'd be able to concentrate better without having to worry about protecting a life outside his own... not to mention that it would mean an end to her disturbing cries.

Roy raised his head and looked around desperately. Other than garbage bins and a few open letterboxes, there weren't exactly any ideal places to safely stash a terrified infant. Not that a garbage bin was an ideal location itself, but he might have to resort to that...

He looked toward the main road and could see the glow of a few straggling cars in the distance, their headlights ghostly rings in the fog, like so many eyes peering around though the darkness. One of the cars turned onto the street, slowly coming directly for him. Without hesitation, he bolted toward it. His legs were screaming and his lungs burned in the frigid air, but this might be his only opportunity to get Elysia to safety.

_Then_ he could deal with Maes. He would end it here, before anyone else could get hurt.

* * *

Alphonse looked over as Nina yawned. She stretched her little arms over her head dramatically, then dropped them down to her sides and looked up at the back of her father's head in the driver's seat.

"Daddy, are we home yet?"

"Almost, sweetheart."

"I'm tiiired..." she complained. She rubbed her eyes, then flopped sideways against Edward on the seat next to her. She burrowed against him with a low whine that foretold the faint beginnings of a tantrum.

She was sitting between Ed and Al in the back seat of Shao Tucker's military-issued car, and had been for the better part of an hour. The four of them had spent the day at one of the out-of-town research labs that Tucker helped out with since it specialized in life alchemy. The Sewing Life Alchemist had thought it a good opportunity to give Ed and Al some outside exposure to the alchemy he dabbled in, plus it gave them all a legitimate reason to get out of the house for the day. Unfortunately, Tucker hadn't been able to find a sitter for Nina on short notice, and so was obliged to bring her along. While Ed and Al both thoroughly enjoyed their tour of the lab and even jotted down a few pages of notes, there really wasn't much to keep a four-year-old entertained... It was also over an hour past her bedtime, so it was no wonder at all that she was starting to get fussy.

"I know," Tucker crooned. "But you've been such a good girl today. I'll put you and Alexander to bed right when we get home, okay?"

"...'Kay."

Ed smirked down at her and shifted a little so that she could lean against his side rather than his hard automail. "Aww, tired already?" he teased her, in that gentle, playful voice he only ever used when speaking to small children. "But Al and I wanted you to stay up with us _all night_ and read all those alchemy books your dad has!"

"The ones with pictures?"

"Nope! No pictures, just lots and lots of words! And we have to read _all_ of them."

"Nooo..."

"C'mon, it'll be fun!"

"No, no, no! That's borrrriiiing... No more alchemy today."

Ed pretended to cave in with a tragic sigh and put his arm around her small shoulders. "Oh... Okay, okay..."

Al chuckled, and he could see Tucker's smile in the rearview mirror. But then, after a moment, the smile disappeared and turned into a slight frown.

Tucker slowed the car to a stop, staring out the front window, his lips parting in surprise.

"...What in the world...?"

Al followed his gaze through the windshield and saw a man speeding toward them, holding what appeared to be a bundle of blankets in his arms, a gun clutched tightly in one hand. The man was perhaps ten yards away and it was too dark and foggy to see him very clearly, but he definitely looked like he was running from _something_.

And then, from the darkness behind him, some kind of huge, hulking thing lurched forward into the lamplight at an uneven and unearthly gallop. It drove a path through the fog as it ran after its prey, thin wisps of the thick condensation swirling like smoke in its wake. It was a monster, some kind of demonic hellhound bent on taking down the fleeing man.

"A chimera?" Ed breathed.

The running man suddenly stumbled, lost his footing on the icy street, and pitched forward. The bundle flew from his grasp, as did the gun, and both landed in wet piles of slush in gutter. The man fell to his elbows and knees, hard, and scrambled to get back up. Ed and Al, nearly in unison, flung open the doors and jumped out onto the pavement to help.

"GET BACK IN THE CAR!" he bellowed at them in alarm, and Al gasped in sudden recognition.

"Brother, it's the Lieutenant Colonel!"

Mustang glanced at the creature barreling toward him, then quickly turned back to look at the bundle of blankets and the gun lying beside the road. The two items were several feet apart and, after a moment's hesitation of looking back-and-forth between the two, he chose the bundle and bolted for it. He didn't have enough time to pick it up and run with it, so he threw himself on top of it, scooping it up against his chest and curling around it, protecting it as he braced himself for the blow he knew was coming.

The Elric brothers were already running toward him when the huge creature slammed into his crouched form, its teeth embedding themselves into the meat of his shoulder and grazing the side of his neck. The beast wrenched his massive head and threw Mustang aside like a ragdoll. The lieutenant colonel cried out as his flesh tore and he hit the pavement again, the side of his head striking the ground. He rolled and came to a stop still curled around his prize, but clearly too dazed by the sharp blow to his head to get up.

Ed dashed forward and clapped his hands together as the monster made for Mustang again. Ed slammed his hands down onto the icy pavement and the street buckled under his power, creating a sharp, broken ridge in the asphalt that shot forward like a spear and knocked the looming creature away from Mustang. The thing sprawled on all fours, looking like some huge, horrendous cross between a long-maned hyena and a slavering madman. Its haunting eyes glowed evilly from out of its malformed face.

Al ran at it with a clenched fist and punched it hard in the chest. Ed appeared at his side, spun, and kicked the creature in the throat then gave a hoot as it visibly reeled from the solid strike. With a grunt it sank low to the ground, teeth bared and long black hackles raised at the both of them.

"Bring it, fleabag!" Ed taunted, a confident smirk stretching the corner of his mouth as if he were actually enjoying the match.

At this, the "fleabag" retreated backward, snarling, apparently finding its prey less appealing now that it was being defended. It gave the two of them one last, threatening growl, then turned and loped on all fours toward the city park beyond the network of residential houses. The night swallowed it completely before it reached the line of trees.

"Lieutenant Colonel Mustang!"

Tucker was on his knees next to Mustang, who was struggling to sit up. Quickly, the lieutenant colonel set the bundle of blankets back down on the ground and hurriedly unwrapped it. Only then did Al become aware of the sound of the screaming infant. The slush-sodden blanket unfolded to reveal a baby, who Al almost immediately recognized as Elysia Hughes.

Mustang cursed when he saw the spots of bright blood stark against the powder-pink of her tiny nightclothes, but then his shoulders sagged in relief when he lifted the hem of the garment and realized that the blood was his and not hers; it was dripping down from his injury and splattering into her clothes. She was clearly terrified and soaked through with the icy slush she had fallen into, but didn't appear to be hurt.

"Mustang, what the hell was that?" Ed demanded, trotting over as Tucker helped him to his feet.

"Where did he go?" the lieutenant colonel asked in return, ignoring the question as he cast his adrenaline-bright eyes around the empty street.

"It ran into the park," Al supplied.

He rounded on Al, angry. "Damn it, you let him get away?" Elysia's crying increased at the sound of his raised voice, nearly drowning him out.

"You're _welcome_," Ed spat. "Jeez, show us some gratitude why don't you? We just saved your sorry ass! A simple 'thank you' would be appropriate."

"We have to go after him!"

"Sir," Tucker interjected, "With all due respect, you're in no condition to—"

"You have no idea the kind of damage he can cause if we don't find him!" he shouted over the crying, clearly distracted by both the baby and his own rage-fueled anxiety. It was clear that something had happened. Something very, very bad that went beyond his scuffle with a monster.

"Lieutenant Colonel, what's going on?" Al asked worriedly, feeling a twist of phantom-nausea in is nonexistent stomach. "What was that thing and why did it attack you? Why do you have Elysia? Did something happen to Hughes?"

Mustang looked at him squarely, still panting, obviously in a great amount of pain. He looked like he was about to explain, but then Elysia started to wail even harder and he closed his eyes tightly. "One of you, in the name of all that is good in this world, _please_ take this damn baby from me. I cannot _think_ with her screaming in my ear!"

Tucker swooped in immediately and collected her into his arms. He cradled her gently and offered his little finger for her to suck on, rocking her. Within mere seconds, Elysia's wailing had diminished into a low, sick whimper and she sucked miserably on Tucker's finger, apparently taking some small comfort from it.

Mustang stared at Tucker openly, with a mixture of bewilderment, awe, and frustrated hatred seeming to fight for dominance on his sweat-streaked face.

Tucker shrugged sheepishly. "I'm a father. I know how it goes."

Mustang sighed and raked a hand through his hair, then winced as he brushed the tender spot where his head had hit the pavement. He drew his hand back and checked it for blood. There wasn't any. Still, he certainly didn't look good. His hands were shaking and Al could see through the tattered shreds of his jacket that the wounds on his neck and shoulder were nasty and bleeding pretty heavily.

"That bite looks bad, sir..." Tucker tried again. "You need medical attention."

"Bite?" Mustang looked startled for a moment, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. His eyes widened and he raised one hand to gingerly touch part of the wound. "Oh, _fuck_..."

"...Sir?"

Mustang shook himself, an odd kind of grim, humorless smile touching his mouth. "You're right, Major," he said, and the smile faded as abruptly as it appeared. He sobered into proper military decorum. "I'm not in any condition for action right now." He nodded to his fellow State Alchemist, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to impose on you, Tucker. Take me to your house, quickly. I'll need to use your phone."

Tucker agreed immediately and they all piled back into the car. Mustang picked up the gun then grudgingly took Elysia back into his arms—she immediately started fussing again—and got into the front seat beside Tucker, leaning forward so that his mauled shoulder blade didn't touch the seat.

Nina was still sitting in the middle of the back seat, her eyes huge in her chubby little face as she stared at Mustang. Al wasn't sure how much she had seen, but it was likely enough to give her some pretty vivid nightmares tonight.

"I'm not tired anymore," she told Ed quietly as Tucker started the car. He spared her an amused, though faintly concerned smile and tousled her hair.


	8. Pain and Pride

Riza sighed, quickly wrapping her robe around her wet, naked body as she trotted down the short hallway of her apartment, dripping warm water onto the floor with every step. She reached the phone by the seventh ring and put it to her ear.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye, here," she greeted into the receiver, already having a pretty good idea of who it would be. Mustang had left work early that evening because he'd wanted to talk things out with Major Hughes and his wife. Riza had advised him against it, to just give the couple some space to work it out on their own—if there really was something going on between them, which Riza wasn't really sure of—but the lieutenant colonel had been adamant about sitting them both down for a discussion.

"_Lieutenant! What the hell took you so long getting to the phone?_ _I nearly hung up_."

Yes, it was him. And by the sound of his incensed voice, the discussion had not gone well at all.

"I was in the shower, sir, if you must know." She brushed a strand of sopping hair out of her eyes. "How did it go with Major Hughes?"

"_Oh, worse than you can possibly even _fathom."

"What happened?"

"_Well_," he began, his voice radiating some mélange of violent emotions that Riza couldn't really decipher over the phone, "_The good news is that Hughes isn't cheating on his wife. Want some more good news? I've made a little headway on that biological warfare weapons case._"

A certain uneasiness nestled itself into Riza's stomach, manifested by the rushed, almost breathless anger simmering beneath his words. "And what's the bad news?"

"_The bad news is that Hughes' behavior and this case are very, _very_ related_. _He's been infected by the virus_."

She let that settle on her for a moment, staring at the blank wall in front of her as she felt a cooling droplet of water trail down the back of her neck.

"But... how can that be possible? Wasn't the weapon still in a theoretical stage? There's no way that someone could have stolen the plans and developed the virus quickly enough to—"

"_It isn't theory, believe me. I was mistaken in that. No, this weapon is a living, breathing thing and Hughes has been infected by it. That's why he was acting so weird. The virus' carrier... its host, I guess... Hughes thought it was a dog, and when it bit him the other day..._"

"...He started to change," she finished for him. Riza had read the file, too. She knew what this meant.

"_Yes. It's completely overtaken him now."_ Mustang's voice became a low, chilling hush._ "He tried to kill me, Riza. He tried to kill his _daughter_. I honestly think he would have eaten her if I hadn't grabbed her and ran."_

Riza's uneasy stomach twisted with a sick lurch at that last part. That was what really drove the horror of it all home. Hughes absolutely existed for his daughter. There is nothing that he would not do for her and she knew that he would slaughter anyone who would even think of harming her... And so to think of this kind, loving man as some kind of beast that was so far removed from himself that he would actually threaten the life that he so one-mindedly protected...

It was a truly jarring thought.

"Where is he?"

Mustang gave a harsh, frustrated sigh into the phone. "_I don't know. He got away from me. Last I saw him, he was headed toward the park, near Main Street. The Elric boys chased him off right after he..._"

But then Mustang stopped, uncharacteristically hesitant. The pit of Riza's stomach managed to drop even lower.

"Sir..." she began quietly, "Tell me he didn't bite you."

"_Wish I could, Hawkeye_."

She closed her eyes and bowed her head forward, leaning one hand against the end table her telephone was stationed on. His words were like a blow to the chest.

"How bad is it?"

"_I'm not sure, I haven't really looked at it yet. I just got into Shou Tucker's house and the first thing I did was call you. This is bad, Lieutenant. There's no telling how many people he could infect or kill if we don't find him quickly. I need you to call everyone and get them over here. Send someone to Hughes' house, too. I need my briefcase. It has all the information about the case in there, as well as the contact information for the scientists running the project. It's in the bedroom by the closet_..."

He trailed off again, but after a moment of contemplative silence he continued, "_Also, be sure to have someone let Mrs. Hughes out of the closet. I barricaded her in there and she was very unhappy about it_. _It might be best to bring her along to Tucker's house. Her daughter is here_."

"...Of course, sir."

"_Be as quick as you can about it. Time is very much of the essence here, Lieutenant. You know I'm counting on you_." And without another word, he hung up.

Riza put the phone down and drew in a deep breath. Then she picked it up again and started dialing.

* * *

Roy put down the phone, wincing as the movement shifted the wound on his shoulder. He hoped it wasn't as bad as it felt.

He was sitting alone in Tucker's ill-kempt office, one hand massaging his temple as he tried to make his substantial headache lessen. He had insisted on not being interrupted during his phone call and Tucker had been more than happy to accommodate him. Ed, of course, made some protests because he wanted to know what the hell was going on, but Roy wasn't entirely sure how much he wanted to tell them yet and had wanted to speak to Hawkeye unhindered and uninterrupted.

He rubbed his brow, wishing that he'd remembered to ask Hawkeye to bring him his gloves from the office. But, he reasoned, she would probably do it anyway without needing to be asked and he honestly didn't feel like calling her again. Besides, her phone line would be busy ringing up Roy's other staff members.

Pushing the chair back from the cluttered desk, Roy got up and limped back over to the office door. He opened it to see Edward and Alphonse waiting for him on the small couch in the living room. Tucker was out of sight, but Roy could hear him crooning to Elysia down the hallway, trying to get her to sleep now that she was calming down.

Ed was watching him with a kind of sage contemplation that was way beyond his thirteen years and Alphonse stood up quickly, nearly dropping the gauze and disinfectants that he had gathered his arms.

"Sir, please..." he began, for perhaps the third or fourth time since they'd stepped into the house. "Just let me—" but Roy cut him off, already knowing what the anxious kid was going to say.

"Yes. Fine," he waved at him vaguely. "Thank you."

Worriedly, Alphonse started opening up the antiseptics and laying out the rolls of bandage as Roy gingerly seated himself on a wooden stool beside the couch. With some effort and a considerable amount of pain that made white and gray dots swirl in front of his eyes, he managed to get his military jacket off. Some of the blood had dried his wound to the cloth and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing loudly as he removed the hopelessly ruined dress shirt he wore underneath. He saw Edward wince out of the corner of his eye as the bite was revealed, but he ignored him, still trying to hold out hope that the wound wasn't too serious. He could feel the sharp points of the tooth-punctures on his shoulder blade, and they traveled up his back and over his shoulder, nearly to his collarbone. He raised a hand and could feel gouges that Maes had left on the side of his neck as well, where his teeth had scraped against his skin. He grimaced.

Al made a sympathetic sound and started to wipe away some of the blood on his upper back with a folded swatch of gauze. The cold, stinging shock of peroxide in his wound was enough to make Roy gasp, but other than that he did his best to stay still and silent.

"Sir, this looks bad..." the big metal boy said after a moment, pausing in his administrations. "You're still bleeding a lot..."

"Just try to get the bleeding to stop and wrap it up," Roy told him, pinching the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed. _Oh, marvelous_...

"But I think you really need stitches. We should call a doctor..."

"Just _wrap it up_, Alphonse."

Al made that concerned little sound again, but went back to cleaning without further contest.

"So what was the deal with that thing that was chasing you?" Ed demanded after a few more moments of semi-awkward silence, the tone of his voice letting Roy know that he was not going to drop the issue this time. "Was it a chimera?"

"It wasn't like any chimera I've ever seen..." came a voice from the hallway to Roy's right. He looked up and saw Tucker coming back into the living room. He turned at Roy. "Elysia finally went to sleep. I put her in with Nina."

"Good. Thank you."

"Well if it wasn't a chimera, then what was it?" Ed persisted, glancing back and forth between the two men. "That wasn't a normal animal. That wasn't natural."

"Yeah, it looked too... _human_, I guess, to be a chimera or an animal..." Alphonse agreed softly. From the corner of his eye, Roy saw Tucker stiffen very slightly at the word "human". But then the man cleared his throat and nodded and Roy wondered if he'd just imagined it.

All three of them looked at Roy, waiting for him to speak. Finally, he sighed. He supposed that he should tell them everything. Tucker, at least, deserved to know, considering the fact that Roy's entire staff would soon be here, using his home for a meeting place to discuss what to do next. And the Elric boys, while they were both very young and very irritating in their own special ways, they were also absolutely brilliant and would likely be a big help on the hunt for Maes Hughes...

"Come on, Mustang, spit it out!"

Roy glared at Ed, but then began, "Well, you're right about that creature not being a chimera... He is human, or... he _was_. That was Major Hughes."

That immediately wiped the expression of aggressive annoyance off of Ed's young face. His impossibly golden eyes widened, then narrowed in disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?"

And so Roy told them. He explained the situation to them as if giving a military report, coolly and professionally. He told them about Maes' odd behavior—though he did keep the information suitably vague... he didn't feel the need to fully describe everything, if only to respect poor Maes' privacy—and the infectious dog bite. He told them about what he'd learned from the case file and how it all directly applied to Major Hughes. He told them about his violent transformation back in his bedroom, as well as his own frantic escape with the baby. Sometime while he was reporting, he felt Alphonse stop cleaning his wounds, frozen by his words.

When he finished, the room became eerily quiet. The three of them heard Elysia give a tiny little moan from down the hall but then she, too, fell silent.

"Sir..." Tucker began, breaking the ponderous lull, "But if he has now bitten you, does that mean that...?"

Roy grunted in affirmation. "It's most likely I've been infected, yes."

"...How long do you have before you turn?"

"That I'm not really sure of. It took Hughes a couple of days to get to where he is now, but he was showing symptoms the morning after he was bitten. I just didn't recognize what was happening to him..."

Roy trailed off, guilt and fear weighing down on his chest. He should have seen this coming. He should have known better than to assume that Maes' problem was related to infidelity. Hawkeye had been right to call him crazy for making any such assumption. Maes would never betray his wife, and she would never betray him. They were, if Roy was going to be completely honest, the most perfect couple he had ever seen in his life.

Maes must have thought that he was going completely insane... and by the end, as he was lying in agony on his bed, ranting and writhing, he had certainly looked the part. How terrifying it must have been for him, to be so utterly sick in both body and mind and just _not know_ what was wrong...

Roy was pulled from his dark, heart-heavy thoughts as Alphonse began to wrap clean bandage around his torso and across his shoulder. He shifted a little to allow the boy a better angle and continued:

"But in answer to your unasked question, I don't think I will be any kind of threat for the near future. Just keep an eye on me and make me aware of it if I start behaving strangely."

"Define 'strange.' This is _you_ we're talking about," Ed quipped, in a heavy-handed attempt to lighten the suddenly bleak mood of the room. Roy didn't offer him any reply and simply waited for Al to finish bandaging him without further comment.

As cool as he was playing it for the sake of the other people in the room, he could not deny the tight coil of worry in his gut. The thought of succumbing to the sickness that had so completely transformed his best friend was frightening. And the thought of the decent into that transformation, the feelings of madness and violence and the inability to control even his own _mind_ was downright terrifying. Roy could almost accept the changes that would happen to his body, but the concept of his mind and mental prowess being so warped and violated by the virus made his sick to his stomach.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it now. When Hawkeye came with his briefcase, he would contact the scientists and get all the information he could out of them. All he could do now was hope that there was, indeed, a cure for this horrible situation.

For Maes' sake, and for his own.

* * *

Gracia sat back in the darkness, holding her breath.

Had she heard something?

There had been nothing but silence for what she assumed was over half an hour. The last thing she had heard was Mustang's booted feet pounding down the hallway, Elysia screaming as he ran, then the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut, and then the unmistakable cacophony of shattering glass.

After that had been a silence so wholly terrifying that Gracia had found herself in tears. She had to get out of here. She had to find her daughter and help her husband. She had to do _something_...

She had tried with all her might to break down the door, going so far as to batter it with the butt of her rifle, but it was no use: the door was stuck fast and no amount of her pounding on it and screaming was going to open it. And so now she was sitting on the floor of her closet, listening to the deafening Nothing.

...But what was that sound?

The front door. It was opening, slowly. And then there were voices. More than one, all of them male. They were very, very faint and she almost wished that she could will her heart to stop beating in order to hear them better.

Then the voices came closer. One of them sounded familiar, but she couldn't be sure. Was it Dr. Trudeau? Admittedly, her mind was a little too frazzled to concentrate on much of anything. Her heart had been pounding like a jackhammer the entire time she'd been stuck in this horrible closet and she could tell that her fever was back. Her whole body ached—especially her poor, swollen eye—and she knew that she just wasn't thinking with a clear head.

She heard the men enter her bedroom and she got to her feet woozily. They were speaking to each other still, but she couldn't make out what they were saying. Were they calling her name? They were right outside the closet and she could hear a loud, heavy, scraping sound as they unblocked the door.

The light that flooded in as they opened the door seemed supernaturally bright. It inundated her senses after being in the dark for so long, making her eyes water and her vision blur as she looked at the three silhouetted figures standing before her. The closest of the men, a small, young-looking military man with short black hair and glasses, immediately raised his hands as he saw the rifle that she had pointed in his face. His eyes went almost comically wide and the men behind him froze.

When she realized that none of the figures before her was Roy Mustang, she lowered her weapon.

"Where is my daughter?" she asked them quietly.

"Safe," said one of the other men, breaking from his rigid shock. It was, in fact, Doctor Trudeau, the physician she had called to help Maes just before everything went insane. He came up to her and put his comforting old hands on her shoulders and smiled at her from under his charmingly old-fashioned moustache. "These fine boys got here just about when I did. They haven't told me much, but they did say that she's safe."

She turned to the "fine boys"—she vaguely recognized them as two of Mustang's men—her whole body shaking. "And Maes? My husband?"

The two soldiers looked at each other. One of them, a tall blond with a cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth, shook his head. "All we know is that he got away. Lieutenant Colonel Mustang sent us here to get his briefcase... and you, of course. We'll take you to your daughter."

She almost laughed, on the border of hysteria, both terrified and enraged. They damn well _better_ take her to her daughter. And Mustang, for that matter. She had a few choice things she wanted to say to the Lieutenant Colonel.

And so, still in her housecoat, with hair in mad disarray—she had wanted to take the rifle but Mustang's men insisted that she leave it behind—she led the way back out to the military vehicle parked in front of her house. She got into the back of the car with the doctor and he immediately began tending to her. He took her temperature, tisked at the fact that it was still a little high, then coaxed her into taking a vile-tasting draught of something that he pulled from his medical bag. A light tranquilizer, he said, for her nerves. She tried to refuse it, but given how badly she was shaking and how hard her heart was pounding and how awful she felt, it was easy for him to convince her that it was in her best interest.

And so she swallowed the acrid stuff and sat back against the seat as the car sped down the cold, empty street, her eyes watching for any hint of her husband looming in the darkness.

* * *

It stalked down the alleyway, its head low, listening to the night. A car drove by and it hunkered down, growling until it passed. There were bright lights and loud noises and warm bodies tucked away in their homes all around it. The creature glanced in windows and licked its fangs, but was more interested in easier prey.

Across the street, an old man was standing on his porch, wrapped in his green and blue plaid robe as he smoked his pipe, sleepless as the elderly frequently are on cold nights.

Something in the back of its savage mind half-recognized the man, remembering that they had encountered one another on this same street corner only a few nights ago. But by the time that thought crossed its simple brain it was already wrist-deep in the man's organs, tearing chunks of flesh from his still-twitching body and swallowing them whole.

A sound in the darkness made it raise its head, blood dripping from its muzzle. A howl. A call in the night, close by. The creature tossed its head back and answered with a call of its own.

It bounded from the porch and ran toward where it could feel it, the other one, waiting. The creature would find it, would kill it. Would tear it apart and eat it, leaving its picked-over carcass steaming in the cold.

Still excited from its slaughter of the old man, its monstrous heart pounding hard with the thrill of the hunt, the thing bounded into the night and, once again, disappeared into the blackness.

* * *

Riza stood beside Mustang, the two of them leaning back against the far wall of Shou Tucker's living room. Tucker himself was on the couch along with Edward Elric, who was cautiously sipping his cup of tea, his too-knowing eyes seeming to watch everything at once. Alphonse was sitting on the mulberry-colored rug in front of the couch, idly petting the family dog and looking just as uneasy as his brother. Breda had perched on a backward-facing chair on Mustang's other side, patiently waiting for someone to fill him in on the situation.

She and Breda had come straight to their commander's side while Fuery and Havoc went to collect Mrs. Hughes and the all-important briefcase. Mustang hadn't said much since their arrival, but he made it clear that there was going to be some heavy discussion when his other two men showed up with the case files. Breda, at least, had absolutely no idea what was going on, but he knew better than to ask too many questions at the moment, given the strained, dark expression clouding Mustang's face.

Riza heard a knock on the door and saw Mustang raise his head blandly. He did not look good, she decided. He hadn't really described how bad his wound was to her over the phone and while she couldn't actually see it because of the bandages, his once-white shirt had a lot more blood on it than she had been anticipating. There were red streaks and splotches all down the back of the shirt, as well as up over his shoulder and especially at the collar. She could see part of the bandages through the tears in his shirt and at his throat, and the gauze was already starting to soak through with fresh blood. Alphonse had confided to her that he thought the lieutenant colonel might need stitches and, even without seeing the wounds, she felt inclined to agree. The man's face was gray and he was clearly very distracted... but, then again, his pallor could be more related to thoughts about his recent infection than blood loss.

Whatever the case, Mustang was going to need medical help very soon. She knew it and he knew it... but they also both knew that it was going to have to wait. Mustang's health was not the priority at the moment, as much as it bothered Riza to realize it.

Major Tucker got up from the couch when he heard the knocking and crossed the room, little Elysia cradled in his arms. She had been crying off-and-on, no doubt still frightened and confused, but at the moment she was fairly quiet. Tucker opened the door and Riza heard the soft, ecstatic cry of a woman. She looked up and saw Gracia Hughes tenderly scoop her daughter from Tucker's arms and envelop her against her bosom, very clearly on the verge of tears

"Oh, _thank you_ Mr. Tucker!" she breathed, her nose buried against the top of Elysia's tiny head. "I... I don't know what I would have done if anything had happened to her..."

Tucker waved off her thanks modestly, "Oh, I didn't do anything other than changer her diaper...! The lieutenant colonel is the man to thank."

She turned to Mustang and the two of them locked gazes. Her teary eyes hardened when she saw him and he looked back at her evenly, purposefully blank.

With an impressive amount of speed from a sick, clearly wrought woman holding a baby, she stormed over to him and, before Riza could even think to step in, brought her knee up, _hard_, between Mustang's legs.

He exhaled forcefully, the wind knocked out of him, one hand automatically latching onto Riza's elbow as he doubled over. His eyes flew open wide and he let out a strained curse, nearly gagging as he made himself draw in a startled—and no doubt _pained_—gasp.

Edward promptly inhaled a lungful of his tea and Alphonse started frantically clapping him on the back as he cackled and choked at the same time. Havoc and Fuery, who were both still standing in the doorway, winced in perfect unison and drew their knees together in a comedic, involuntary reaction. Another man, an older gentleman with a moustache who had come in with Fuery and Havoc, stood with one hand over his mouth in prim surprise. Breda stiffened where he sat, the look on his face torn between "horrified" and "trying not to laugh". Tucker just looked on benignly, as if he wasn't entirely sure what to think.

But Mustang himself was certainly _far _from amused, as was his attacker.

"If you _ever_ come between me and my daughter again, so help me..." the angry mother warned.

"Come... _between_ you?" Mustang wheezed as he tried to straighten a little, one hand over his stomach, teeth gritted, "I saved her life!"

"You _risked_ her life by not letting me help! Look at the both of you! You're covered in blood and she's terrified! I could have helped if you hadn't locked me in there! How _dare_ you—"

Riza chose that moment to step forward, cutting her off while Mustang braced himself against the wall and tried valiantly to catch both his breath and his pride. Tentatively, she took the woman's arm. She noticed with a jolt that she was sporting a black eye, but chose not to mention it.

"Mrs. Hughes... please calm down. I don't think poor Elysia needs to get any more upset than she already is."

Mrs. Hughes wilted a little at the soft truth in Riza's words and looked down at her daughter. Elysia's eyes were wide and her lower lip trembled pitifully. She had a scrape on her chubby cheek and just looked absolutely miserable. The woman cuddled her child closer and, without deigning to look at Mustang again, allowed Tucker to lead her to the couch and sit her down next to Edward, who was still coughing explosively into his hand.

Riza turned back to her commander, who was more-or-less standing erectly again. There were fine beads of sweat at his hairline and his jaw muscles looked to be working overtime. He looked like he needed to sit down or vomit. Or both.

"I hate that woman," he hissed under his breath.

"No, you don't. Are you alright, sir?"

He stabbed her with his darkest, most unquenchably murderous glare. "I'm great, Hawkeye. Fucking _peachy_."

She sighed. Luckily, Havoc and Fuery chose that moment to bring over the briefcase and remind them all why they were gathered here. Now in a very distinctly foul mood—if he hadn't been _before_ the kick to the groin—Mustang filled them in on the situation in his usual, blunt-but-concise way, letting them know that Hughes was now to be considered dangerous and on the loose. He told them heavily of the man's transformation and of the infectious bite that so drastically changed him. The men listened with a tense, disbelieving silence.

"And not only is he out there," he said, smoothing his hair back out of his eyes, frustrated. "But so is the infected person who bit _him_. There are two of these creatures out there now. At _least_. We can't even guess if others have been infected besides me. Our next mo—"

"Wait, besides _you_?" Havoc gaped. "You're infected?"

Mustang gestured at the blood on his shirt, irritated by the interruption. "Does this look like a decoration?" he snapped. "What the hell do you think this is? Yes, I was bitten. No, I'm not dangerous yet. Can we move on?"

Havoc ducked his head, cowed by Mustang's tone. Mustang glowered at him for a moment longer before continuing, "Our next move is to get in contact with the lab specialists and just hope that there is some cure for this virus. Dr. Caldwell is listed as the head of the project. We talk to him, we get our answers."

Mustang's hands clenched on his crossed arms as if he was just itching to make the scientists answer for a few things. He had an unsettling _blood-shall-be-spilt_ look in his eye that made even Riza a little wary.

"I'll call the lab," Breda offered timidly, flipping through the case file. "Perhaps there will still be someone there. It would make sense for them to be still working, as much trouble as they're in for letting the virus loose. If not, I'll call Caldwell at home. His number is listed."

"The telephone is in the office," Tucker piped up. He, Ed, and Al were the only other people who remained in the room during Mustang's report. Mrs. Hughes and the mustachioed man—who briefly introduced himself as Dr. Trudeau, the Hughes' physician—had retired to a back room to examine Elysia for injuries and let Mrs. Hughes rest.

Breda thanked him and moved into the office with the file.

"I'll, uh... I'll just join him..." Havoc volunteered awkwardly, rushing after him. After a beat, Fuery followed, giving Mustang one last nervous look before disappearing from the room.

Mustang watched them go, frowning. Honestly, though, Riza couldn't blame them for fleeing. The lieutenant colonel could be a very unpleasant person sometimes, especially when he was stressed or didn't feel well, and both conditions were applying themselves to his current mood. Riza was more equipped to deal with his anger because she had gotten used to it over the years and understood that wrathful outbursts were just his way of coping. He was frightened for Hughes. His best friend was in jeopardy and he felt helpless. Helplessness frustrated him and made him angry. The fact that he had someone to blame for these horrors—those project scientists who had created this viral problem—only fueled his rage.

She did not envy Dr. Caldwell when Mustang got his hands on him.

"...Perhaps you should sit down, sir," Riza opined gently. "You don't look well."

"I don't want to sit," he growled lowly, half-pouting. "My balls hurt."

Riza only barely managed to keep herself from chuckling. "She really nailed you, didn't she?"

On the other side of the room, Ed snorted.

Mustang looked over at her, eyes narrowed in a kind of wrathful warning that would have sent the bravest of men running for their lives, but Riza had seen it enough times to be immune to it. She smiled back placidly and patted him on the arm, knowing that he wasn't really angry with her. After a moment he seemed to soften a little and went back to his default brooding.


	9. Caldwell and the Catalyst

The conversation with the lab went rather quickly. A little too quickly and too easily for Roy's liking. It seemed only a few short minutes between the time his men went into the office and when they came back out, their faces drawn but still hopeful.

"Well?" he asked them tersely. He was in a bad mood. A very, very bad mood and, with the aching shot to his groin and Ed's impudent grinning on top of the horror of everything else that was going on, he doubted it was going to lighten any time soon.

"The lab is over on the other side of the city..." Breda began. "I spoke with Doctor Caldwell and he seemed happy to get some new information. He wants us to go down there."

"How much did you tell him?"

"The basics. I told him that one of our higher-ups had been transformed and that another had been recently infected."

"Did he say whether or not there is a cure?" Hawkeye cut in.

"He didn't," Breda sighed, scratching his arm discontentedly. "But if he wants us to physically go to the lab, he must have something in mind that will help."

Roy nodded. "Fine, then let's move out," he grabbed his military jacket and gingerly slipped his arms back into it, trying not to disturb the wounds on his back any more than he had to. Breda handed him his long overcoat that he'd left in the office when calling Hawkeye. It, too, was torn and he could see an iridescent sheen of Maes' infectious saliva smeared around the tears. He grimaced, not really wanting to put it back on. He looked over his shoulder. "Tucker, you and the boys stay here with Mrs. Hughes and the doctor; the rest of us will meet with Caldwell.

"No way, I'm going with you," Ed insisted, getting to his feet. "Al and I are better equipped to handle it if we get attacked by Major Hughes again. You can use our help finding him."

"We have more than enough man-power between the five of us, and I'm sure the lab will fill us in on anything else we need," Roy mumbled, finally donning the overcoat and trying not to wince. The pain in his bite seemed to be getting worse.

"What do you mean by man-power? Guns? Your flames? He's your friend, is that really how you want to fight him?" Ed challenged boldly. When Roy didn't answer, he continued, "Look, Al and I are probably better trained in hand-to-hand, in non-lethal combat than any of you. We don't want to kill Hughes, do we?"

"Not if we don't have to," Roy agreed grimly.

"So then Al and I would be better suited to take him down than you and your alchemy or them and their guns... and who knows what kinds of things those 'scientists' arm themselves with? How can we really trust them after what they've done?"

Ed said the word "scientists" darkly and incredulously, as if it were some kind of bleak joke, and Roy had to admit that he felt a chill wave of accord with him. The Elric brothers and Mustang were all natural scientists of alchemy and they held that title with guarded pride, and so to see their scientific kin—even a far removed kin, as this sect of science seemed to be—so clearly doing unspeakable acts to transform innocent human beings into war machines was absolutely sickening.

It was the same nauseated horror that Roy had felt in his gut when he discovered that two small children from the backwoods of Risembool had attempted human transmutation... This was taboo, and the boys probably knew that this whole terrible situation was reminding their commander of that night.

He sighed. "You have a point. Fine, you both can come."

Ed gave a curt nod, his face stonily resolute and Al gave a small, nervous bow.

Over the past few months of knowing them, Roy had doubted his decision to enlist them more than once. They were young—very young, as all of his critics liked to point out—and Edward, at least, was foul-mouthed and impetuous. But, as Roy saw now and many times in the past, they were both completely dedicated to their cause and to one another. As young as they were, the military would surely benefit from a pair of soldiers so completely genuine and moralistic as these two boys.

Roy smirked and, for whatever reason, felt a small iota of his enraged stress lessen its weight on his chest. Everything would be all right. Once they got to the lab, it would all work out.

"Good," he announced, "Then let's go."

Quickly, the team piled into their military-issued vehicles and sped toward their answers. Roy sat silently through the entire drive, his wounds throbbing.

* * *

Ed didn't like this. He didn't like it _at all_.

He didn't like hospitals or, really, anything medical. He knew that it was likely because of his own long convalescence before and after his automail surgery. He didn't like to admit that the experience had traumatized him or affected him psychologically in any lasting way—though he honestly couldn't remember if he'd had such a crippling fear of needles _before_ he'd lost his limbs or not—but he just _did not like_ the whole atmosphere of medical wards or sterile laboratories. They gave him the creeps.

And this lab was no exception. In fact, it was quite a bit worse. It had the same feel as a hospital, that same disturbing coldness, but it certainly wasn't as clean as one. The lab wasn't necessarily dirty, but it definitely wasn't sterile and had a kind of grimy feel to it that made Ed's skin crawl with imagined bacteria. There were stains on the floor of the hallway—was it blood?—and there were cobwebs in the corners. There was also a smell, a musky undercurrent that told of animals being on the premises. Tucker's home had a similar smell down near the workroom, but that animal smell wasn't nearly as pervasive or unsettling there. Here, it was noticeable enough to be distracting. It smelled like fear.

Whatever kind of lab this was supposed to be, it was certainly unprofessional-looking and far from impressive, which made it all the more unsettling. It was a veritable hellhole.

"Chill out, Chief..." Havoc murmured beside him, softly so that no one else could hear. "You're making me nervous."

Ed frowned to himself. Was his discomfort that obvious? He straightened himself and tried to look confident as he strode down the grey hallway, preceded by Mustang, Hawkeye, and a burly man in scrubs. He looked more like a bouncer than the lab assistant he claimed to be. He was so muscular that his white scrub shirt looked just about ready to burst a seam across his shoulders and he was nearly as tall as Al.

"Dr. Caldwell has been waiting for you," the man said gruffly. He looked exhausted. Just about everyone in this place, Ed noticed, looked exhausted. It looked as if most of them hadn't slept much since their precious weapon had escaped.

Mustang's eyes narrowed. "He should have contacted us sooner."

"We contacted Investigations as soon as we were able."

"Yes, with an inexcusably vague document that said nothing of there being an infectious killing machine roaming around the capital," he snapped back. The thread of Mustang's patience, which was generally thin and frayed anyway, was pulling itself dangerously taut. Ed almost—but not quite—felt sorry for Caldwell and the other people involved in this; none of them were going to escape Mustang's ire by the end of it.

The assistant didn't say anything more and just led them to a spacious chamber at the end of the hallway. The room was quite large and better lit than the rest of the lab seemed to be, and there were about half a dozen people in lab coats and scrubs milling around and working. There were several tables lining the walls, covered with equipment and glass beakers of various colored fluids. There were bulletin boards with charts and schematics tacked up onto them, along with detailed drawings and photographs of animals and anatomical dissections. One particular photo, secured up high is if in a place of honor, was of some kind of huge, fur-covered beast with the posture of a great ape and the face of a rabid wolf. Its eyes were full of rage and pain and, while this poor creature was unquestionably further along in the transformation than Hughes had been when they'd seen him, it wasn't hard to recognize the same sickness within him. So that was what the final stage of the virus looked like.

Ed shuddered and forced his eyes elsewhere.

On the other side of the room were a series of small chambers that seems to be a cross between hospital rooms and prison cells. The walls and doors of the chambers were of thick, tempered glass. Within, there were simple clinic beds with IV racks and small cabinets. There were also lamps to fully light the rooms, but other than that the cells were bare and desolate and just looking at them made Ed's skin crawl even more. His only consolation was that the rooms were currently empty of occupants; that would have just made the whole sight more unpleasant.

"Ah, Lieutenant Colonel Mustang, I presume?"

A cool, drawling voice greeted them as they entered the room and Ed looked up to see a tall, greasy-looking man approaching them. His hair was of medium length, and it fell just to the top of his shoulders in oily tendrils. He looked to be in his early forties, a little young for his hair to be as completely gray as it was. He might have been handsome, with his steel-colored eyes and charming grin, if it weren't for the penetrating, dissecting quality of his gaze and the fact that the looked like he hadn't showered or shaved in a few days.

"And you must be Doctor Caldwell," Mustang said, shaking his offered hand.

"Or _Colonel_ Caldwell. Whichever you prefer."

Mustang's shoulders stiffened a little. It took a moment for Ed to understand why. This man, Caldwell, had just stated his rank. For someone like Edward who wasn't really tied into the military—yet—this information meant next to nothing. But for Mustang, the emphasis of his statement meant, plain and simple, "I outrank you. I am in charge here and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it."

Understandably, this did not sit well with Mustang.

"Good to finally meet you face-to-face," he said smoothly, trying not to show his displeasure.

"Likewise. So, I hear that you and your men had a little encounter with our Delilah."

"Delilah?"

"Oh yes. Corporal Delilah Blaine," he said, brightening like a parent speaking of a particularly promising child. "One of the newer lab assistants here. She volunteered for Project Red Agent—that's just the working title, you know, until we really get this thing going—and was a huge success. We're very happy with her as an Agent."

"Until you let her escape, right?"

Caldwell's face darkened a little. "No one 'let' her escape. It was an unfortunate and unforeseen series of events that let to her disappearance. We were transporting her to another lab and she proved herself... stronger than we had thought. She broke from her restraints and mauled her handlers in the back of the truck with her. Nearly killed the driver before she bolted. We have been searching tirelessly for her since."

"So tirelessly that you didn't think it important to give Investigations all of the information?" Mustang growled. Hawkeye glanced at him in warning, silently trying to tell him to reign in his ire a little. Ed, of all people, had seen Mustang get pretty damn angry on a few occasions, but never had he seen him smolder like this, pushing on the edge of insubordination.

But Caldwell smiled diplomatically, cocking his head to the side in a decidedly eccentric way. "We couldn't be too blatant about it, of course. We are still trying to get funding for this project, and if enough people at HQ are put under the impression that this is an unsafe enterprise and pull their support... well, you understand."

"You're covering it up."

"If you want to put it that way, I suppose." Caldwell looked down at Mustang, his mouth quirked softly and cheerfully, "Hmm. I'm going to assume from the blood on your clothes and your frazzled demeanor that you are one of the ones that was bitten. Am I correct, Lieutenant Colonel?"

Mustang's fist clenched at his side. "Yes, sir."

"Is there some kind of antidote or vaccine to the virus, Colonel Caldwell?" Hawkeye asked with a salute, speaking up for the first time. "Or is my commander to suffer the same fate as Major Hughes?"

Mustang looked over at her and she met his gaze. Ed saw something pass between them and his fist unclenched. He was more worried about Hughes and the investigation than his own precarious health, but he knew that she was right in making a cure the priority now that they were here. Her clear-headedness seemed to relax him a bit and he exhaled.

"Oh yes, yes of course," Caldwell laughed genuinely, tapping a finger to his forehead as if amused by his own absent-mindedness. Ed watched him, nonplussed, deciding that "weird" was probably the best word to describe this man. "You'll be needing that, won't you? Slipped my mind. Bailey!"

A small, mousy woman with dark frizzy hair pulled back in a messy ponytail straightened from the document she was working on at one of the tables.

"Yes, sir?"

"Lieutenant Bailey, I'm going to need several doses of the Agent vaccine." He turned back to Mustang and his men and said, "All of you should be vaccinated. Chance of infection is possible if you've had any contact with an Agent, even if you haven't been bitten."

Ed's stomach did a back flip. He _hated_ needles... There was no way... _no damn way_ that they were going to give him a shot. Hughes hadn't even really touched him. He didn't need to be vaccinated. Nuh-uh. Not happening.

Caldwell raised his head again to his lieutenant. "Meet us in the exam room, Bailey. Oh. And bring a vial of the 'Catalyst'."

Bailey's face brightened and her brown eyes flicked over to Mustang before returning to look at her commander. He grinned and nodded, tacitly confirming something to her. She grinned back, her mousiness turned vibrant by her sudden excitement and she quickly disappeared, no doubt to gather the vaccine and... 'Catalyst'?

Caldwell sighed to himself, and looked over at Mustang. He put an arm around his shoulder fondly as if they were the best of friends and began to lead him back toward the hallway. Mustang's jaw clenched hard and he winced as the man unknowingly put pressure on his wounds, but he did not attempt to brush him off. Like a good soldier, he just bore it and went where he was led.

Ed, Al, and Mustang's men all exchanged a wary glance and, under Hawkeye's lead, they followed.

* * *

Riza had to admit that she was a little relieved. This Caldwell was more than a little odd and it was very clear that Mustang already disliked him, but he was a doctor and he had a cure to keep her commander from turning into an infectious beast. She supposed that they shouldn't be picky at this point and just be glad that there was a vaccine. Fuery, Havoc, and Breda all looked as if they shared the same sentiment.

Ed, who had been visibly uncomfortable since stepping into the lab, joined Alphonse in the far corner where they would be out of the way, but still able to listen and observe. Riza had known the Elric boys for a while now, but it still occasionally struck her how smooth and calculated they could sometimes be when they were taking something seriously.

"Lieutenant Colonel, please sit," Caldwell said, gesturing to a small examination bed covered in a thin layer of sterile paper. Mustang did as he was told, but he didn't look happy about it. "It's Roy, right? May I call you Roy?"

"I suppose, sir," Mustang said, in a tone of voice that clearly said the opposite.

Caldwell tittered and rummaged briefly in a cabinet beside the bed. "How long ago were you bitten, Roy? I'd wager at least seven hours, given your aggressive agitation."

"No, he's just like that," Ed cracked from his corner and Riza sighed. Okay, maybe they weren't being _entirely_ serious about this.

Caldwell looked over at him, then chuckled. The smile on his lips, disturbingly, did nothing to warm the ice in his eyes. "Ah, I see. Well then, how long has it been?"

"A little over an hour," Mustang answered, watching Caldwell pull a small flashlight from the cabinet. He clicked on the light and shone it in Mustang's eyes, one after the other.

"Hm. Feeling odd at all? General pain, dizziness, strange thoughts or sexual urges...? _Uncharacteristic_ temper flares?"

"No. Nothing that can't be explained by blood loss and whacking my head on concrete, at least."

"Has someone seen to your wounds already?" Caldwell frowned, glancing at the red stains on Mustang's shoulder. "You do look a little bloodless. Quite pale."

"Yes, I've been bandaged. The wound isn't really that bad." His eyes turned to Alphonse on the other side of the room, daring him to contradict him. Alphonse straightened nervously, but knew better than to say anything.

"Oh, good. Anyway, it is a bit early for you to be showing symptoms, so I'm not surprised that you aren't feeling it yet."

He clicked off the light and put it in his pocket. From a drawer beside the bed, he pulled out a clipboard and began writing something upon it. After several awkward moments of him quietly writing away, he paused and looked up at Mustang calculatingly.

"Do you have any allergies?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Any history of heart disease or high blood pressure?"

"...No."

"Good, good..." Caldwell murmured, then went back to writing.

"_Please_, sir," Mustang interrupted him finally, one hand clenched hard on the side of the bed, stoically trying his damnedest to keep from losing his fragile temper. "One of my men is still out there, transformed. What exactly are we up against and how do we stop it?"

Caldwell pursed his lips. He tucked the clipboard under his arm and smiled.

"It's a virus. That's pretty straightforward, I think. Red Agent is still in its early stages, but we are developing the virus for use in warfare. I'm sure you know that, from reading the files, right? Essentially, we would introduce the virus to someone—most conveniently, a prisoner of war—and then send them back home behind enemy lines. Within a couple of days, the POW would fully transform into an Agent. He or she would infect others, who would infect others, who would infect yet others, et cetera. Once transformed, the Agents would be completely under our control."

"If you have control over them, then where is Delilah? Where is Hughes?" Mustang asked with quiet acidity, voicing Riza's own thoughts.

The doctor sighed. "As I said, we are still in the early, experimental stages of the project. We haven't worked out all of the kinks yet. It is our eventual goal to engineer the virus to program the Agents to serve a specific person, such as an Amestrian field commander. We have only had a grand total of four human Agents in our lab so far. Delilah is the third."

"What happened to the other three?" Breda asked tentatively.

"Two of them were successfully reverted to their natural born forms and were handsomely paid for their service to us. We learned quite a bit from studying them and were very pleased."

"And the other one?"

Caldwell looked at him levelly. "Sadly, there were some complications. He was the first volunteer and we learned a lot from him as well. We have remedied the formula and now it is nearly perfect."

"He died?" Riza asked in horror.

"He was made well aware of the dangers when he signed on to the project. He put his signature on the consent form. He died in the name of science." The doctor cleared his throat, then softened his tone a little. "It was through him that we infected another Agent, successfully creating a second generation. It was our first real breakthrough. As of yet, we've only attempted to create first and second generation Agents... we've run out of volunteers, you see..." at this he leered at Mustang before continuing, "But through our experiments on primates and rodents, we've found that the virus usually nullifies itself by the fifth or sixth generation. It speeds up the transformation time considerably, but weakens generation to generation and eventually burns itself out into nothing, to keep the virus from getting out of control and causing an epidemic..."

"Well thank Heavens for that..." Havoc mumbled in Riza's ear.

"But you're probably more concerned with how to find your man than with the nuances of the virus. Am I right, Roy?"

Mustang didn't say anything, but his eyes narrowed very slightly and he waited for the man to continue speaking.

"I have both good news and bad news on that front, my boy." Caldwell sat down beside Mustang on the narrow clinic bed, so close that their knees touched. "The good news is that the Agents can track each other. This also keeps the virus from becoming an epidemic when we finally use it on a larger scale, because not only do Agents kill our enemies, but they kill each other quite efficiently." He grinned, seemingly very happy about this. He lifted one arm and, once again, draped it over Mustang's shoulder. "But the bad news, Lieutenant Colonel, is that we've recently found ourselves fresh out of Agents and, as I mentioned, we're also out of medical experiment volunteers..."

Caldwell's long, slender fingers laid themselves across Mustang's upper arm and squeezed tenderly. Mustang's eyes flicked over to the man's hand, the anger in his eyes now accompanied with a wary discomfort. When he looked back, the doctor smiled so broadly that Riza could practically count his teeth from where she was standing.

"This is where you come in, Roy."

Riza's stomach twisted at the gentle, sickly-sweet tone in the doctor's voice. He couldn't mean...

"Are you... suggesting that Lieutenant Colonel Mustang just let himself transform?" Fuery breathed.

"And why not?" Caldwell asked, one arm still around Mustang in a possessive way. "It's the only real solution we have left. My men and I have spent _days_ looking for Delilah on our own and we haven't caught her. We're on her trail, but she's always a step ahead of us. With another Agent, we can find her _tonight_. All we need is the proper, willing subject and we can have both Delilah and the Major safely in custody before sunrise."

"Before sunrise?" Mustang asked suspiciously, "It took Hughes nearly two days to change. How can you expect any volunteer to be fully changed before sunrise?"

"Oh, I was hoping you'd ask!" Caldwell enthused, pulling Mustang close in a tight, one-armed hug. Riza imagined that she could actually see the poor Lieutenant Colonel's skin crawling with disgust. Caldwell didn't seem to notice. "You're absolutely right. Left to your own devices, it would take you quite a while to fully change. Which is why we've created the 'Catalyst'. It essentially acts as an accelerator and speeds up the process. It's very convenient."

"How quickly does it work?" Mustang asked, after a long, thoughtful pause.

"Sir, you can't seriously be considering—" Riza began, but Caldwell cut her off.

"A couple hours. No more than two and a half, depending on how susceptible you are to the virus. It varies a little, from person to person."

A sound at the door made everyone look up. Lieutenant Bailey entered, holding a metal tray stacked with vials of clear fluid and a case of hypodermic syringes. There was another syringe laid out on the tray, but the fluid within it was greenish and had an iridescent sheen, like the rainbow glaze of spilled motor oil.

"Ah, perfect timing, as always, Lieutenant!"

Caldwell stood and went over to her and Mustang looked relieved to have him at a distance again. He gave Riza a long-suffering look behind the doctor's back and she shrugged apologetically. This guy was certainly a slimy creep, but he was their superior and, unfortunately, the only one who had any idea how to make everything right again. But, then again, it was becoming abundantly clear that the good doctor had ulterior motives. Mustang's best interests weren't really at heart so much as he wanted another experimental volunteer.

But, surely, Mustang wasn't going to agree to that.

Bailey set the tray on a small table on the other side of the bed. Caldwell opened the case and removed one of the glass syringes. "This vaccine is quite effective. It nullifies any possible exposure and shields against future infection. We're working on developing a version that can be taken orally so that we can introduce it to Central's water supply. Even after we find Delilah and Hughes, they may have infected others besides you. We've found two bodies and a third individual, a child, was bitten and promptly vaccinated... but there could be more. Now that there are at least two full-fledged Agents out there, I'd count on it."

He lifted one of the ampoules of clear fluid, inserted the needle, and sucked out a measured amount of the vaccine. "Ever member of my staff has already been inoculated, including myself. I highly recommend that all of your men take a dose as well. If our encounter with the Agents gets hairy when we find them, it will give us one less thing to worry about."

He put the ampoule down and picked up the green-filled needle. He stood in front of Mustang, a needle in each hand: the vaccine in his right hand, the accelerator in his left.

"I can't force you," Caldwell told him quietly, with an intense kind of earnestness that made him even more intimidating. "But believe me when I tell you that you are one of our last chances to end this situation quickly and discreetly. I would do it myself if I hadn't been vaccinated already..."

Mustang looked at the needles silently, the gears in his head turning, weighing the pros and cons. After a moment, he shifted to shrug out of his coat and military jacket.

"Lieutenant Colonel Mustang is injured," Riza spoke up again quickly, in startled horror as Mustang started rolling up his sleeve. She could see the dark consideration in his eyes, and he was leaning toward taking the vile green syringe. "Undergoing such a physically taxing transformation will only make it worse."

"He'll be fine. I promise you."

"Why not use one of us?" she continued, gesturing toward herself and the rest of Mustang's staff.

"Hey, speak for yourself!" Breda laughed incredulously, raising his hands.

"None of _us_ are injured. Use me. I'll do it."

Mustang's head snapped up at that. "No, Lieutenant. I won't allow that. Not from you or anyone else under my command."

"But, sir—"

"I'm already infected, it makes sense for me to do this."

Caldwell smirked, mildly watching the exchange.

"I'm with Hawkeye on this one, Boss..." Havoc interjected nervously. "If it has to be done, one of us could—"

"I said no. I want to do this." Mustang looked at them all in turn, slowly and deliberately. "I knew something was wrong with Hughes and I failed to stop it. This is on me, and I am not going to risk the health of any of you to fix it."

"Sir, you're hurt," Riza tried again.

"I'm fine."

"You've suffered some blood loss, you've just gone through something terrifying."

"It isn't your decision."

"You can't possibly be thinking clearly..."

Mustang's face darkened. In a swift, fluid motion, he took the green-filled needle from Caldwell's hand and stabbed it into his own arm.

Riza lurched forward to stop him but he depressed the syringe before she could even take a step. He pulled the needle out, watching Riza.

"Oh no," he said blandly, handing the empty hypodermic back to Caldwell. "Look at what just accidentally happened. How clumsy of me. It must have been because I'm 'not thinking clearly'."

She put a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes tightly and holding back a slew of unflattering words.

"Now we have no choice," Mustang announced to the room at large, getting to his feet. "This ends tonight. This cannot go any further than it has, and I need _all_ of you at the top of your game. I'm injured and I would only be slowing you down, and to allow one of you to become an Agent would take yet another fully functioning member from our team. Making me the Agent is the best option, and as much as I know you don't like it, you know that I'm right."

Riza felt sick. She bit her tongue and bowed her head. But he _was_ right. He was always right.

"Marvelous!" Caldwell beamed, giddily thrilled. He picked up his clipboard again and flipped through it. "Now, if I could just have you sign the necessary consent forms..."

"I'm not signing anything."

The doctor looked up. His grey eyes flashed. "Excuse me?"

Mustang smiled, in that lazy, confident way that always meant that he had won some kind of battle. "I'm not signing away your responsibility on this. We are in this situation because of you and your organization. I did not ask to be infected; I was attacked. I did not give my consent to that, nor will I." He stepped closer to Caldwell, his smile widening very slightly. "If something happens and I am somehow seriously injured or killed, I have all of these witnesses..." he gestured to his staff, "who will contest that it was the fault of your institution and I was compromised unwillingly. The ball is in my court now, _Colonel _Caldwell, so you'd better make damn sure that nothing happens to me or to any of my men. Because, as it is sir, you and your lab are in some very serious shit."

All humor and color drained from Caldwell's face and Riza nearly laughed aloud. Mustang knew what he was doing after all.

"Now vaccinate my men so that we can move out. I may not change for another couple of hours, but that doesn't mean we can't search in the meantime."

Seemingly at a loss for anything to say now that he was being to blatantly blackmailed, Caldwell turned back to the tray of ampoules and started filling the other needles, futile anger radiating off of him. Behind his back, Mustang raised his eyebrows at Riza questioningly. _Did you doubt me?_ his eyes asked. She sighed again and looked away, the uneasiness in her stomach not at all soothed by his confidence.

But, whatever the case, there was nothing that she could do about it now. Mustang was going to become a monster whether she wanted him to or not. And now he had a set time span.

Two hours.

She could almost hear the seconds on the clock ticking by, counting down until the moment when he was no longer her commander, but a slavering beast with a thirst for blood.

"Are you sure about this, sir?" she asked her superior softly, while the doctor was occupied with the needles. "Can you trust him?"

"Of course I don't trust him," he smirked, "I think he's bat-shit insane. But, we do need him and I know that he'll do anything in his power to keep me from harm, if only so that he can collect data on me for his project... but also to keep himself out of trouble. Just go with it for now. There's really nothing else we can do."

"...Yes, sir," she agreed, unhappily.

He nodded to her in thanks, then looked toward the doctor and made a face. "Just try to get him to stop touching me. It's creepy."

Riza chucked darkly. "I'll do what I can."

"Good. Now go get vaccinated."

She did as he bade her, grudgingly leaving his side. Bailey approached her with a needle as Caldwell finished injecting Fuery. Ed, she noticed, was keeping to his corner and looked as if he was hoping no one would notice him. She looked over her shoulder back at Mustang. He was staring at the empty needle that Caldwell had left on the foot of the bed. In his eyes she could see determination and nobility and, behind it all, the fear that he was trying to hide from them. He was scared, of course he was... but Hughes needed him-they all did, really-and there were no lengths he wouldn't go to in order to help his dearest friend.

All Riza could do was silently hope that his sacrifices would not be in vain. She forced herself to look away from him again and Bailey injected her, protecting her against the unseen thing that was going to completely overtake her superior before the sun rose.


	10. Time and the Lack Thereof

((AN: Long overdue update... my apologies. Chapter is longer than usual, so hopefully that will make up for it somewhat))

**EDIT: AHHH! I just realized that my email has been blocking all my messages from this site since I switched to a new browser MONTHS ago. So if you've reviewed anything of mine in that time and I haven't replied (especially if you asked questions or put a lot of work into your review), I completely apologize. I've already found a bunch that I hadn't seen before and am working my way through them, so you may get a very, very late reply from me eventually. Arg. Sorry.**

* * *

The vans rumbled down the near-deserted street, their wheels kicking up filthy slush onto the empty sidewalks. Ed stared out the windows set into the double-doors at the back of the van, watching the alleyways between the dark houses for any sign of the Hughes-thing skulking in the shadows. He saw nothing, but he hadn't really expected to. He knew that finding these creatures, Hughes and Delilah, was going to be very difficult... for why else would Mustang have agreed to Caldwell's ridiculous offer?

None of this was sitting well with Ed. It was all so unbelievable. And horrifying. Definitely horrifying. The thought of gentle Major Hughes prowling the night, literally driven out of his mind by some kind of viral warfare, was disturbing in itself... but to think that Mustang was going to go through that very same kind of transformation in two hours—well... less time than that by now—was downright frightening. But it had to be done. Ed understood that and, as much as he typically disliked Mustang, this show of selflessness was noble and he had to respect it.

Ed had always known that Mustang and Hughes were good co-workers and that they got along well when they weren't bickering, but he had never before really realized that they were such good _friends_. And by the look of the fire burning in Mustang's eyes when he'd agreed to essentially sacrifice every part of himself in order to help him, Ed felt safe to say that their connection with each other was nearly as strong as Ed's connection to Al. There had been love in his eyes, and a heated, murderous rage that demanded retribution for what had been done to his friend.

It was a sharp, slap-in-the-face reminder that Mustang was human, too. And that just made it all the more upsetting to think that he would shortly become a monster.

"See anything?" Al asked hopefully, breaking Ed from his musings.

He sighed and his breath fogged the frigid window. "Nope."

They were sitting side-by-side in the van, on the long bench lining the right side. On the left side of the van were two very formidable-looking lab assistants: the one who had led them to Caldwell, and another man with bandages on his forearm and stitches on his brow. Neither of them had said a word since the van started up, and Ed wasn't exactly keen to make polite small-talk with them at the moment.

The van went over a bump and the chains that were hanging on the front wall of the compartment rattled and jangled ominously. Ed looked over at them, not needing to ask what they were for. The lab apparently had only two vans at their disposal: the one that Mustang and his men were riding in, ahead of them on the cold street, and this one... the "transport" van. This was the very van that Delilah had escaped from only a few nights prior, and Ed felt he could safely assume that the guy in bandages had been one of her handlers. This time it looked as if they weren't going to take any chances; there were more than enough chains _this_ time.

But there were more than just the chains. There were locks and shackles, leather straps and cuffs, and a very large and very powerful-looking tranquilizer gun mounted on the wall. There was even what looked like a collapsible gurney folded up against the wall, with steel manacles bolted to the sides. There were spots of a red-brown something staining it that could have been either old blood or rust.

"Brother, I have a really bad feeling about this," Al said quietly, his eyes lingering on the vivid tracks of claw-marks gouged into the floor of the compartment. Ed just swallowed and nodded.

* * *

It was hot in the van. It hadn't been at first, but Roy supposed that having so many bodies packed into such a small space had warmed the frigid compartment up pretty fast. He had already removed his overcoat and loosened the collars of his jacket and shirt and was contemplating taking off his jacket entirely, professionalism be damned. He was in pain, agitated, and just didn't feel well; he didn't give a flying fuck whether or not his attire was living up to the expected military decorum.

Roy fidgeted uncomfortably and checked his pocket watch, for perhaps the fourth or fifth time since he'd been injected with the Catalyst. Ugh, had it really only been seventeen minutes? He couldn't say that he was really looking forward to his impending transformation, but waiting for the terror and pain that he knew was coming was just excruciating. He was a man of action; he did not like to wait. Every part of him was tingling and his heart was beating an unquiet tempo behind his ribs. It was taking entirely too much willpower just to sit still.

He just wanted to get this over with.

He clicked the silver watch shut and slipped it back into his pocket as the van paused at a railroad crossing and then continued onward. At his side, Hawkeye gave him a quick, worried glance. He smirked back at her, trying to show her that he was fine. He hated it when she worried. He hated it even more when she was so obvious about it. It was actually starting to get irritating. She just needed to trust him on this, without question. He was, after all, her commander.

Roy was sitting in between Hawkeye and—most unfortunately—doctor Caldwell as Lieutenant Bailey drove the van toward the city park where Hughes had last been seen. Breda, Fuery, and Havoc were sitting across from them on the other side of the van, and all of them looked uneasy. Breda, especially, looked as if he would rather be anywhere but here. He kept glancing at Roy nervously, then looking away, then shifting around, then looking back up at his superior again, watching him for any sign of change.

"Your man looks a little ill," Caldwell mused, speaking low so that only Roy could hear him over the lumbering hum of the van, gesturing at Breda. "Touching that he's so nervous for you."

Roy felt his lips stretch back in a dark grin. "He doesn't like dogs. The fact that I'm about to turn into one probably doesn't help his phobia."

Caldwell made a harsh, incredulous noise. "You aren't going to turn into a _dog_," he spat, sounding offended. "You're turning into an _Agent_. There is more than one kind of animal DNA in the compound and I've hand-chosen them all carefully for their desirable traits." His eyes glazed over with an odd, gushing kind of joy. "You'll have the agility and vision of a mountain lion, the strength and aggression of a bull, and a number of others... And yes, there's some canine in there, too—not dog, but timber wolf, to be exact—for one-minded drive, possessive territoriality, and loyalty."

"Loyalty, sir?" Roy dared to scoff, eyeing him. "To whom?"

"To us. Eventually," he scowled. "I told you, we're still working on that part. We're still working on a lot of things, which is why it's so important that we have volunteers we can collect data from." He smiled up at him, placing a hand on Roy's knee. "I'm sure you wouldn't mind helping out with that, hmm? Answer a few questions, fill out a survey, that kind of thing...?"

Roy swallowed back the urge brush the man's hand away and just gritted his teeth and allowed the contact, the mild nausea in his gorge increasing. By the time they'd gotten to the van and settled themselves, Roy had decided that Caldwell's touchiness was not meant to be sexual, as he had first assumed. Then he thought that the man was just simply tactile and had no sense of personal boundaries... and that was probably at least partly true, but Roy felt fairly certain that Caldwell was also using the lack of physical boundary as a tool of intimidation and, damn, it was working. Roy didn't exactly have a phobia of being touched or anything so extreme, but he was used to keeping a physical distance from people—even his loved ones—and to be so casually touched by someone he barely knew and resolutely _did not like_ made him quite uncomfortable. And it wasn't as if he could really ask his superior to stop. He'd taken enough chances with blackmailing the odd doctor and knew better than to push him too much harder. Roy's life was pretty much in Caldwell's hands, even with the legal trump card he had hanging over him.

"It would be my pleasure," Roy answered, smiling tightly, forcing himself not to look down at the doctor's unwelcome hand.

"Oh, wonderful!" Caldwell beamed, squeezing his knee. "Just let me know when you start to feel the change coming on and I'll start asking a few posterity questions. I trust you'll be honest?"

"Brutally."

The doctor chuckled. "I wouldn't expect any less from you." He patted Roy's leg affectionately and, finally, moved his hand away. Roy's skin crawled and the tight wad of disgust in his chest started to turn to anger. This guy needed to keep his damn hands to himself or he was going to deck him in the face before the end of the night.

"How will I know when the change is coming?" he asked, shifting a little closer to Hawkeye to put more space between himself and the Caldwell. He felt her leg warm against his and was once again reminded of how stiflingly hot it was in here. He undid the buttons on his jacket and sighed as the cooler air touched his chest.

"Oh, you'll know," Caldwell said ominously, "Perhaps not at first, since the initial symptoms are fairly subtle. The first really noticeable changes will most likely be to your personality, though. Since I don't know you very well yet, we're going to have to depend on your men to tell me when you start to act... not like yourself. But don't worry about it for now. You have at least another forty-five minutes before you even _begin_ to feel anything, and then..." He trailed off with a smile. "I'm sure you're already in pain and you don't feel well from your injuries, but it's going to get a lot worse, kiddo. When you do start to change, we'll start setting up the restraints that are in the other van. We may have underestimated Delilah, but you are in _very_ safe hands."

Roy almost laughed. Safe. Right.

Silence lapsed into the van again for a few moments. Caldwell closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall of the van, looking exhausted but oddly pleased. Roy sighed in masked disgust, trying to think of a polite way to get up and move away from him, but a sudden shock of pain to his already-aching skull made him gasp and put a hand to his brow. The pain seemed to shoot down his spine in a hot streak that spread outward around his sides and to the pit of his stomach, which then churned even more violently than before.

Damn, that smack to the head when Maes tossed him on the street had been deceptively hard. He hoped he didn't have a concussion. That was the absolute last thing that he needed right now. He took a deep breath of the sickeningly warm air within the van and sat back, trying to get his stomach to settle.

After a moment he opened his eyes and looked over at Hawkeye. She met his gaze worriedly. She had, of course, been watching him, as well as listening to his conversation with Caldwell to the best of her ability in the noisy van. Roy bristled a little, wishing that she would just back off and _trust_ him. He was her superior, and it was her duty to follow and obey him without question. If he had been any of her other superiors, like Armstrong for example, she wouldn't have dared to be so nosy. Perhaps she was too comfortable with her commander and didn't see a reason to respect him any longer. Perhaps he should remind her of his rank and what it meant to respect his stripes, and _get it through her fucking head_ that he was not a man to be second-guessed or questioned.

Roy's head twinged again and he grimaced.

Maybe he should remind her of her place and teach her a goddamn thing or two about what it meant to serve Roy Mustang. If the back of his fist didn't get it through her thick skull, then it might be necessary to bend her over a desk and _make_ her...

_Whoa_.

Roy sat completely upright, utterly and completely shocked by the vile image that branded itself into his brain like a hot iron. No. No, he didn't want that. What the _hell_...? How could he even _think_ that? He glanced over at Hawkeye again, saw that she was still watching him, and felt his face heat with the oddly dual flush of shame and rage. Shame for what he had pictured himself violently doing to her, and rage because _she was still fucking looking at him like that_. What the fuck was her problem? Why was she always so goddamned _focused_ on him, watching his every move? Maybe it wasn't even about her not respecting or trusting him. She could be a spy, couldn't she? That was why she was always hanging on him, watching him like a hawk. They could all be spies for Bradley, every last one of them, whispering information about their oh-so-beloved Lieutenant Colonel into his evil little ears. The stupid bitch was probably fucking him too, laughing as she spilled Roy's most precious secrets...

"...Sir, are you alright?" she asked, her face confused and worried as she watched him.

He almost backhanded her, right there. He had even raised his hand slightly before he caught himself as another shooting blast of pain wracked his poor head with dizzy agony and grounded him again, snatching away those horrible thoughts.

"Lieutenant, go sit with the others," he ordered quickly, putting his hands to his temples. He just wanted her to get away from him.

She blinked at him. "...I don't think—"

"Will you just fucking _go_?"

The words came from his mouth in a harsh growl, so wrathful and unlike his usual voice that he startled himself. Hawkeye actually jumped a little, but then she stood and moved to the other side of the van where the others were sitting, stumbling a little as the vehicle turned a corner.

Roy lowered his hands from his head and looked at them. They were shaking in his blurred vision. He tried to make them stop and found that he couldn't.

"Colonel..." he said to Caldwell quietly, the nausea and the pain in his gut making themselves felt again. "I don't feel right."

"Hmph. I'm not surprised," the man yawned, disinterested. "From the looks of your jacket, you've lost quite a bit of blood. But I wouldn't worry about it. It shouldn't affect the transformation too much."

"I don't think it's that. I—"

Roy gasped and doubled over as if he'd just taken a hit to the stomach. Pain unlike any he'd ever felt before gripped him, completely stealing his words and shocking him into dead, agonized silence as he tried to steady himself against it. He leaned forward, his fingers digging into the fabric of his slacks, his throbbing head bowed almost to his knees as his vision faded out and then back in again. He raised his head and, through watering eyes, he could see his men already half out of their seats in alarm. Roy grimaced and tried to straighten himself, not wanting them to worry about him more than they already were. He nodded at them tightly, trying to show them that he was fine, and sat back again.

But the pain had not stopped. It felt like a massive hand had taken hold of his organs and was squeezing them steadily tighter, crushing his lungs, stomach, and heart in a vice-like grip. If he'd had control of his voice box at the moment, he might have screamed.

"Lieutenant Colonel?"

Caldwell was looking over at him, his greasy head cocked to one side and his brow furrowed.

It took several beats for Roy to get enough control of himself to reply, but when he remembered how to breathe, he grated out, "I m-must be having some kind of bad reaction to the Catalyst..."

"Nonsense," he scoffed, "Even if you _were_ having a bad reaction, you wouldn't be having it _yet_. The Catalyst hasn't even been in your system for half an hour." He paused and pursed his lips. "But perhaps your injuries are more extensive that we had thought..."

Rage welled in Roy's chest again. _Nonsense_? He called Roy's pain and discomfort _nonsense_? He should rip his goddamn balls off.

Caldwell rummaged in the pocket of his lab coat and produced his flashlight. With his other hand, he reached over to take Roy's jaw in his hand.

The instant Caldwell's fingers touched Roy's skin, that barely contained rage and revulsion he'd been holding back finally boiled over. He jerked back, batting Caldwell's hand away with a sharp blow. "Stop fucking _touching_ me, you filthy son of a bitch!" he growled, "You're a disgusting, perverted piece of shit who doesn't deserve his life, let alone his rank!"

A dead, shocked silence flooded into the van. The heat of anger retreated a little from Roy's brain after a moment and a wave of cold took its place as he realized what he had just said to his superior.

"Colonel, I apologize," he said quickly, his hands starting to shake again. God, why was it so damn hot in here? "I don't know why I said that."

"...Neither do I..." Caldwell was frowning at him, but he didn't look angry. He looked contemplative, the gears in his head turning hard in an attempt to figure something out. He turned his head and shouted, "Bailey! How much Catalyst did you give him?"

* * *

Lieutenant Bailey turned in her seat to look back at her boss from the driving compartment to Riza's right. The expression on Bailey's face was closed and a little confused, as if she thought Caldwell was asking her a trick question.

"...Seven cc's, of course..." she said finally, turning back to the road but still watching him through the rearview mirror. "The standard dose for a second generation Agent."

Caldwell's frown deepened and his eyes moved back to Mustang.

"What's wrong?" Riza asked, speaking up against the silence of the van. Because, clearly, something _was_ wrong. Mustang was obviously in considerable pain if she were to judge by the pallor of his sweat-streaked face and the way that he had begun to tremble. His uncharacteristic outburst only added to her concern. Sure, Mustang had made no attempts to hide from her how much he hated Caldwell, but he was a man of firm self control and, no matter how distressed, angered, or in pain he was, he would have never, ever disrespected a superior because of his personal feelings. For him to do so this vocally and violently spoke volumes about the lieutenant colonel's current state of mind.

"I'm not sure," Caldwell answered her, still eyeing Mustang in a very interested, very penetrating way. "Mustang, are you on any kind of drug? Some kind of amphetamine, perhaps? Cocaine?"

"No, of course not," he replied, panting a little. He grunted and closed his eyes tightly, his shoulders tensing as if he was being afflicted by a sudden increase of pain. He crossed his arms over his chest and curled in on himself a little, swearing under his breath.

Riza jumped up from her seat beside Fuery and moved back over to sit beside her superior. She put a gentle hand on his arm, but he wrenched it away from her, his eyes blazing.

"I told you to _get the fuck away from me_, bitch!" he snarled at her.

She blinked and pulled her hand back. She looked up at Caldwell and he looked back at her, his eyebrows raised.

"Let me guess..." he began hesitantly, "this isn't typical behavior for our Roy, is it?"

"No, not at all."

Caldwell swallowed tightly and Riza's pulse quickened. Even Caldwell looked nervous now. Mustang wasn't acting right, even considering everything that he'd gone through tonight. What was worse, Caldwell was the expert here and he didn't seem to know what was wrong.

Slowly, Mustang sat upright. He looked over at Riza. His eyes were hazy and watery and... somehow, they just didn't look right. They looked larger, more intense as he stared at her for several seconds, as if he wasn't sure what to say.

"Hawkeye," he rasped finally, "I apologize..."

"It's alright, sir," she assured him quickly, "I—"

"But I... I really need you to stay away from me. Please. Don't question it, just back off."

Riza couldn't really say anything to that, but she did stand and take a few steps away from him. She could not, however, bring herself to move back to the other side of the van with her colleagues. Even if he didn't want her there, it was her duty to stay by his side.

Caldwell was still watching Mustang with that bold, unnerving way that he had. Finally, he leaned in and asked, very quietly, "Why did you ask her to move?"

The muscles in Mustang's jaw worked and he swallowed. His eyes flicked back over to Riza for a moment, awkwardly, but he did not reply.

Caldwell's eyes narrowed. "Is it because you were thinking about her? Were you thinking about..." He leaned in and spoke so lowly that Riza could not hear him. Mustang stiffened, his eyes widening at whatever it was that Caldwell had said.

"How did you—?" he breathed, but Caldwell interrupted him dismissively.

"It's a symptom. One of this first." Caldwell pulled out his flashlight again and reached toward Mustang. But then he remembered himself and paused. "May I?" he asked.

Mustang, still trembling and looking increasingly ill, nodded. Caldwell cupped Mustang's jaw in one hand and clicked on the flashlight.

In spite of herself, Riza gasped as the light illuminated her superior's eyes. They lit up in the darkness of the van, shining an iridescent and poisonous _green_ that was so far from his usual blue-black that it made her stomach turn.

Caldwell cursed and pocketed the light. "He's already changing," he mumbled to himself. He was definitely tense now, unsettled in a way that was becoming contagious.

"Why the hell is he changing already?" Breda asked. The tightness in his voice—coupled with Caldwell's own uneasiness—was doing nothing to calm Riza's fraying nerves.

"You mentioned back at the lab that some people are more susceptible to the infection," Havoc piped up timidly, "Maybe he's just one of those people."

"Figures," Mustang chuckled darkly, leaning his head back against the wall behind him. Sweat was beginning to stream down the sides of his face and he reached up to wipe it away with one shaking arm.

"No. Impossible," Caldwell snapped at them. "Outside of some insane genetic mutation that I've never encountered before, something else must be causing it for it to be happening this quickly."

"Wait..."

Riza looked over at Fuery. His face was drawn with a suddenly deepened concern. "Lieutenant Bailey said that she gave him the standard dosage of the Catalyst for a second generation Agent..."

"Yes? And?" Caldwell snapped.

"Well," Fuery cleared his throat, clearly intimidated, before continuing. "If Corporal Delilah Blaine bit Major Hughes... and then Hughes bit Lieutenant Colonel Mustang... Doesn't that make him _third_ generation, not second? Didn't you say that third generations change more quickly than second?"

Caldwell's steely grey eyes widened, just slightly. "_Hughes_ bit him. Not Delilah?"

"Um... yes, sir. Does it really matter that much, though?"

He stared at Fuery and then slowly, terrifyingly, the color started to drain from his face. He jumped to his feet and stumbled toward the driver's compartment.

"You fools! That would have been important to know! Bailey, stop the van!"

The Lieutenant brought the van to a quick and screeching halt over on the side of the road. Caldwell threw open the double doors at the back of the compartment and jumped out into the street. "Lieutenant Hawkeye, get him up!"

The urgency in his voice shot through Riza like a cold bullet. She took Mustang by the arm and coaxed him to his feet. He didn't fight her, but he did seem to be a little sluggish and stumbled over his own feet as she led him out of the van. She could feel his body heat through his clothes, and realized for the first time that he was running a fever. She cursed inwardly.

Outside in the bright streetlights, she could see her superior more clearly and the light did not flatter him. He looked terrible, to say the least. He stumbled again and had to steady himself against the side of the van. He bent double, one hand pressed against the black metal, and vomited.

Caldwell and Bailey were jogging toward the other van as it pulled to a stop. He flung open the doors and started barking orders to the two burly men who had been riding in the back with Edward and Alphonse. The boys jumped out of the van curiously and followed Caldwell back toward Riza and the others. The colonel moved over to Mustang and put a hand on his back as he heaved again.

"Steady, man. You'll be fine. Everything's fine."

He did not, Riza noted, sound convinced of his own words.

"Hey... is he okay?" Edward asked Riza, jutting a thumb over at Mustang. The sick man was straightening himself and trying to remove his military jacket. Havoc rushed in to help him slip out of it, revealing the shirt underneath to be badly torn and completely saturated with an unhealthy combination of sweat and blood.

Caldwell chewed his lip as he came back toward them, agitated. "He was given too much of the Catalyst. A third generation Agent changes much more quickly than a second generation, so adding on that dosage of the Catalyst is forcing him to change too fast."

"But will he be alright?" Riza pressed.

"Lieutenant, I honestly don't know. This has never happened before, except in the early experimental testing with rats. We've always been very careful..."

"What happened to the rats?" she asked, not sure if she wanted to know.

"Well, one of them vomited up its own digestive tract." He spoke bluntly and dismissively, ever the scientist. Even as he said it, his voice did not show concern for the human life that his Catalyst was endangering. He did look concerned, but Riza got the feeling that he was more worried about what Mustang's potential death would mean to the funding of his precious Agent project. As he turned away from her and trotted back toward the transport van where two of his men were setting up a gurney and restraints, Riza felt distinctly ill.

"Is there nothing you can do?" she called after him, horrified.

"We can hope that he's more resilient than a rat, I suppose. Other than that, not much. From the looks of him, I'd say he has about ten minutes before the change really starts to pick up momentum. What happens then..."

He trailed off, his arms raised in a shrug.

Riza swallowed. She looked down and exchanged an unhappy glance with Edward before walking past him and his brother back toward her commander. Mustang was leaning his back up against the van, his eyes closed, putting obvious effort into making himself breathe evenly. Havoc still had his jacket and he had taken his tattered shirt off of him as well.

His nearly-bare, sweat-soaked skin shone in the streetlight, so hot in comparison to the cold night that a faint steam was rising from his shoulders and arms in ghostly tendrils. There was a halo of condensation on the van outlining Mustang's arms and torso, his body heat fogging the cold black metal. The bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder looked tight and strained, as if Mustang were flexing his muscles underneath.

"Sir... can you hear us?" Breda asked tentatively. He was nearly as pale as Mustang and looked almost as nauseated.

"Mmph. Yeah," he rasped. His brow furrowed tighter and he leaned forward a little, crossing his arms over his chest again. When he opened his eyes that green light in them was even more apparent than it had been just minutes before. "What'd Caldwell say? I th-thought I heard something about up-chucking my own organs."

His wry smile was very, very weak.

"He said you're in for a rough night, but you'll be fine," Riza lied. At her side, Edward looked up at her calculatingly, but said nothing.

"Oh. Good," he panted, closing his eyes again. He grunted and his shoulders suddenly tightened, the muscles in his arms and abdomen going taut. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees on the cold, slush-covered ground before any of his men could think to rush forward and catch him. He swore loudly and curled in on himself until his brow nearly touched the asphalt. The muscles in his back were so flexed and tense that they looked absolutely unreal.

Riza rushed forward to help him, but then hesitated as she remembered his warning to keep at a distance. He had told her not to question it and, though it went against her nature to do so, she obeyed his words and stayed back. Breda and Fuery stepped in immediately and took Mustang from under each arm, pulling him from the frigid ground and helping him stumble over to a low wall near the van.

"Get off of me!" Mustang hissed abruptly. He wrenched himself from their grasps. "I'm not a goddamn invalid, so keep your fucking hands _off._"

"Whoa, okay, okay..." Breda said, backing away from him with his palms upraised.

"Why the hell are you even here?" he continued, taking a threatening step toward Breda, his shoulders tensed as if he had a mind to attack him. "You can't even stomach being in the same room with a pup, you coward. What made me think you were man enough to help with this mission, I'll never know. You're _worthless_."

He stumbled backward a little into the low wall and sat down on it quickly. His eyes seemed to lose focus and he closed them tightly, leaning forward to cradle his brow in his hand.

"...Sorry," he rasped, sounding both exhausted and sincere. He raised his head a little after a long moment of silence and looked at them. "Don't listen to anything I say from this point forward," he ordered, "Don't trust me." He stopped and shook his head with a kind of alarmed wonder. "...I was _this close_ to ripping your throat out, Breda... I wanted to kill you. I still kind of do."

Breda stared at him, lips parted in unsettled surprise.

"Don't trust me..." Mustang repeated, bowing his head again.

"Wise words," a voice rang from behind them.

It was Caldwell, strolling toward the group, a clipboard tucked under his arm.

"He's already starting to lose control of himself, and when he does he will not hesitate to kill you. He won't know you. You will be nothing to him, except male competition. And meat." He looked over at Riza and his mouth morphed into something lecherous and evil. "Or, perhaps something even more unpleasant."

Caldwell's cold eyes lingered on her for a moment longer and it was all she could do to suppress a shudder. But then his smile warmed and he turned his gaze back on Mustang. Mustang returned his glance, his eyes flashing a dark kind of warning. Caldwell didn't seem to notice the near-tangible hatred flowing off of the sick commander. Either that, or he just didn't give a damn.

"...Which is why," Caldwell continued amiably, "we should get down to business before he changes too much to be of any use." He pulled out his clipboard and a pen and stood in front of Mustang, looking oddly buoyant in contrast to everyone's nervousness and Mustang's murderous glare.

"While this is certainly far from the ideal scenario, I have to admit that I'm very excited about this transformation," he grinned enthusiastically, like a car salesman. "We've never had a third generation Agent before, so this should prove to be educational for all of us!"

"If I even survive, you mean..." Mustang winced, putting his head in his hand again. His whole body tensed and he gave a small, strangled little cry, his fingers clutching his raven hair—had it always been so long?—in subdued agony.

"Oh, even if you _don't_ survive, I'm sure a lot of information will still come of it!" Caldwell went on joyously, the anxiety he'd shared with Mustang's men earlier all but gone in a cloud of scientific discovery. "...But you'll probably survive," he added, almost as an after-thought.

It was becoming abundantly clear by his demeanor that he didn't really care if Mustang made it through the night. Sure, it would likely be a setback to his project to have a high-ranking officer dead at his hands... but his exuberance hinted that this was a hurtle that his lab could overcome, especially in the wake of studying a _third generation Agent_.

"Now then," he went on, setting his pen to the clipboard, "Let's get on to those survey questions we discussed earlier, hmm?"

Mustang looked at him as if he were insane, his eyes—those increasingly animal eyes—were narrowed and hazy, regarding the doctor evenly. But then he raised one hand in a shrug of defeat. "Ask away," he invited. The voice that came from his pale, waxy lips sounded entirely too low and raspy to be Mustang's.

"Lovely! Alright then, 'Question One: are your feelings toward your country positive or negative?'"

Mustang frowned. "P-positive, of course."

"Of course," Caldwell repeated, making a note, "'Question Two: has this opinion changed in any regard since being infected by the Agent?'"

"Uh..." the lieutenant colonel began, clearly distracted by his pain. Another spasm of muscle-tightening ran through his arms and torso and he grunted, wrapping his arms around his middle. "_Ah_... no. No, I don't think so..."

"Good, good... 'Three: are you currently feeling any discomfort?'"

"That... _that_ is a stupid question."

"Just answer, please."

Mustang rolled his heavily shadowed eyes and started to answer when another spasm hit him. He cried out and clenched his teeth hard, folding in on himself with his brow resting against his knees and his tautly muscular arms hugging himself. The muscles in his back and flank bulged, seeming to move and pulse of their own free will, writhing under Mustang's skin. Blood was beginning to seep out from under his straining bandages and run down his back in tiny, sweat-diluted streams of red.

"Ye... yes..." he managed finally, breathing so hard that Riza feared his lungs would burst.

"And on a scale of one to ten—ten being the worst pain you've ever felt—how would you rank your discomfort?"

Another spasm hit him. This time, Mustang couldn't even answer. Instead, he _screamed_.

It was nothing like Riza had ever heard before. It was a gutteral, screeching sound that was more animal than human. There was no describing it in auditory terms, other than to say it sounded like some kind of twisted combination of beasts, if all of them were being slowly burned alive. It was the sound of all the souls of Hell wailing for freedom. It was the epitomic sound of what it means to feel pain.

Caldwell pursed his lips, eyebrows raised. "...I guess we'll call that a _nine_..." he mumbled, jotting it down.

Mustang cried out again and pitched forward off of the wall, landing on his hands and knees. Every part of him trembled and twitched. His back arched and he heaved, a sudden upsurge of blackish-looking blood dribbling over his wan lips.

"...Okay, _nine-point-five_..." Caldwell conceded.

In an instant all of them—even Edward and Alphonse, who Riza had all but forgotten were there, as focused as she was on her commander—were at Mustang's side. Havoc put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but Mustang immediately jerked away. A low, enraged growl rumbled from him as his bloodied lips pulled into a snarl, revealing the newly inhuman shape of his elongating canines.

"_Don't_." It was just one word, but the force of the eloquent Roy Mustang speaking it so harshly, so commandingly, in a voice that was so disturbingly not his own, was enough to make all of them move away from him again.

His hair was very noticeably longer now, hanging in his face and clinging to his sweaty back in thick tendrils. His shoulders were broader, even as hunched as they currently were, and every muscle in his body rippled beneath his thin, fevered skin. He was gasping hard, his massive chest pulling his bandages so tight against his wounds that the gauzy cloth began to fray, the bloody strands giving way under the strain. Riza could see some of the wounds now, and they gaped wetly like small red mouths, further tearing themselves open by Mustang's changing body.

There was a low, muffled _crack_ and Mustang collapsed sideways onto the concrete. He did not immediately voice his pain. In fact, he stopped breathing for a moment. He just lay there on his side, his eye wide with deep, mortal shock, unable to move or make a sound. But then it came again, that muffled crack, and Riza saw Mustang's ribcage shift against the underside of his skin.

Only then did she realize that the cracking was the sound of Mustang's bones reforming themselves within him, possibly breaking. And only then was Mustang able to find the breath the scream again. And, god, did he scream.

Havoc stood over him, no doubt wanting desperately to help him but having no way of doing so. "Damn it, how long is he going to have to suffer through this?" he asked, fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette. He put it to his lips, lit it, and took a long, anxious drag.

"...Not long," Caldwell answered, watching his experiment with wide, excited eyes. "I believe my estimation of ten minutes was a bit generous." He turned his head to look back over at the transport van and called, "Bailey! Is everything ready?"

"Nearly!" she called back, loading what looked like a formidable tranquilizer gun.

"'Nearly' isn't good enough! We don't have much time! Get to it, I don't want to lose this one because we were unprepared!" He looked down at Mustang again and chewed his lip. He lowered himself to one knee beside him, like a father kneeling down to speak to a small child. "Listen up, Mustang. This transformation kind of snuck up on us, didn't it? Try to hold it off a little longer. Buy us some time, if you can, hm? Stay with us."

Mustang looked up at him from his vantage point of the ground, one glowing eye visible from behind his curtain of black hair. His hard, harsh panting slowed a little as he looked at Caldwell, and Riza wondered for a moment if he had understood what the man was saying. Something in his gaze whispered that he was already too far-gone, and any hope of helping him was lost.

A split second later, that suspicion was confirmed.

With the speed of a striking cobra, Mustang attacked. He was on Caldwell in an instant, knocking the older man back against Fuery's legs. Mustang had gone for the doctor's throat, but Caldwell had raised a defensive hand to push him back. There was a spurt of blood and a surprised cry and Havoc and Breda nearly collided trying to pull their commander off of the doctor. They grabbed him by each arm and dragged him backward as Riza and Fuery both knelt beside Caldwell.

In all the flurry of movement and Caldwell's scream, it took them all a moment to realize what had happened. Caldwell's left hand was a bloody mess. He clutched it to his chest, grimacing, trying to put pressure on the spurting hole of blood and bone where his little finger had been just minutes ago. Riza's eyes shot to Mustang's mouth, where she saw the remainants of the missing appendage gored between his teeth, the exposed knucklebone pale against his bloody lips.

Time stood still for a moment, all of them, including Caldwell, just staring at the disembodied finger in Mustang's mouth. Riza was the first to snap out of her horrified daze. She jumped forward, one hand grabbing the side of Mustang's face, the other trying to pull the finger from his teeth. Havoc and Breda were holding him tightly but he still fought her with surprising strength and, in spite of her best efforts to take it from him, Mustang crunched down on the devastated phalange, tossed his head back, and swallowed it.

"Ugh!" Breda cried, letting go of him and shuffling backwards. "No. _No_. That did _not_ just happen! Ugh!"

"...Well then," Caldwell said with an eerie kind of calm, "I guess that means time is up."

Mustang bellowed and thrashed against Havoc's hold. Riza helped pin him down and Edward and Alphonse were close behind, forcing Mustang facedown against the concrete as Fuery helped Caldwell to his feet. Beneath her, Mustang stiffened as another wave of the transformation struck him and he roared in pain. She could feel his bones fracturing and grinding in their sockets, ripping through muscle and straining tendons, changing him into the monster that Caldwell wanted him to be.

"It's almost over," she found herself telling him, her throat tight with terror and worry. She ran a trembling hand through his hair. "It's almost over..."

He responded by growling and twisting his head around to snap at her face with his bloodied teeth. This creature was not Mustang, she knew then. Not now, at least. This was a wild animal, and no amount of her comfort or worry would get through to it. And if she gave it the chance it would gladly kill and eat her. Or... as Caldwell had pointed out... do something even more unpleasant.

"Erickson, Jacobs!" Caldwell called to the burly men working in the other van, "Get the restraints, I don't care if you aren't done setting up! We have to move, now!" He turned back to the four of them holding Mustang down. His eyes blazed at them and the blood that had splattered onto his cheek only made that gaze more intimidating. "Do not, under any circumstances, let that man go. There is more than his life at stake here, and if you compromise my research in any way, I will make damn sure that you live to regret it. Mustang is out of commission, so you are to treat me as your commander and obey my orders. I trust you understand."

And then, bleeding hand still clutched to the front of his lab coat, he spun from them and ran back toward the van, barking orders to his men with all the power and authority of his rank.

Though she hadn't thought it possible, Riza's insides plummeted even lower. She exchanged a glance with her comrades and saw that they were all just as disturbed.

Beneath them, Mustang growled again.


End file.
